
^^^^Y SljVlPKl^NS'l^^^^^ 



P^T 



.mm TQMKi '&,r, iputfam. 



'^toplt'^ iEirition* 



THE 



POETICAL WORKS 



OF 



THOMAS HOOD, 

AUTHOK OF "the LAY OF THE LABORER," AND " THE SONG OF THE SHIRT." 



TWO VOLUMES IK ONE. 



NEW YORK; 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 

Fourth Avenue and 23d Street. 
1873. 






<3lfl from 
the Esta-^ of Miss Ruth Putnam 
Oct.6,:93l 



Poole & Maclatjchlan, 
printeks and bookbinders, 
205-213 East Twelfth St., 

NEW YORK. 




PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT. 



It is the object of this volume to place within the reach of the 
masses for whom they were intended, the Works of this great Poei 
OF THE People. The poems which will make the name of Thomas 
Hood immortal were written late in life, and in a spirit wliich i3 
most felicitously illustrated by the author himself in his prose accom- 
paniment to " The Lay of the Laborer," -r-theprose itself being 
a consummate poem. With this production we commence the volume, 
regarding it as the fittest prelude to those songs of humanity Avhich 
have made the name of Hood a household word with all who speak 
the Eno'lish tongue. 

This volume embraces all the poems published in the Moxon Col- 
lections of the author's sentimental and humorous verse, and in the 
four volumes of the Boston edition. Of the " Odes and Addresses to 
Great People," which are found at the close of the work, it is stated 
on the authority of a presentation copy marked by Hood himself, 
that the Odes to Mr. M'Adam, to Mr. Dymoke, to Sylvanus Urban, 
to R. W. Elliston, to Maria Darlington, to the Dean and Chapter of 
Westminster, and to H. Bodkin, were from the pen of John )l*M' 
iLTON Reynolds 

February, 1866 



CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. 



PAG I 

LIFE OF HOOD xni 

POEMS. 

Lays of Humanity. 

The Lay of the Laborer 3 

The Bridge of Sighs 27 

The Song of the Shirt 31 

The Lady's Dream 34 

'The Workhouse Clock 38 

Hero and Lkander 43 

Lycus, the Centauk 73 

The Two Peacocks of Bedfont 87 

The Two Swans 94 

The Dkeam of Eugene Aram 104 

The Elm-Tree : A Dream in the Woods 112 

The Haunted Housp: 129 

GuiDO AND Marina : A Dramatic Sketch 14.3 

Stanzas to Tom Woodgate, of Hastings 148 

The Mary : A Seaside Sketch 153 

Miscellaneous. 

Fair Ines 159 

To Hope 161 

To my Wife 163 

To Celia 164 

The Departure of Summer 165 

Ode : Autumn 170 

Song, for ]Music .- 172 

Ballad 172 

Hymn to the Sun 173 

To a Cold Beauty 174 

Ruth 175 



CONTENTS. 

PAQI 

176 

Th^ Sea of Death ^^^ 

\utuinQ ^ ^ Yj'j 

Ballad... ' ^>j^ 

{ Remember, 1 Remember • • ^^^ 

Ballad 281 

The Water Lady ^^^ 

The Exile ^g^ 

To an Absentee ^ '^ 

So"S 184 

Ode to the Moon 

rr ^°' 

To .J.J, 

The Forsaken ' ^H 

,. loo 

-A^''tumn 

OC.e to Melancholy ^^^ 

g?,anets. 

Written in a Volume of Shakspeare 193 

To Fancy 194 

To an Enthusiast • • • 194 

» It is not death, that sometime in a sigh " 195 

" By every sweet tradition of true hearts " 195 

On Receiving a Gift 196 

Silence 196 

" The curse of Adam, the old curse of all " 197 

•' Love, dearest lady, such as I would speak " 197 

" The Last Man " 198 

The Lee Shore 205 

The Death-bed 206 

Lines on seeing my Wife and two Children sleeping in the snme 

Chamber " 207 

To my Daughter, on her Birthday , , 207 

To a Child embracing his Mother 208 

Stanzas 209 

To a False Friend 210 

The Poet's Portion 210 

Song ^ 211 

Time, Hope, and INlemory 212 

Flowers 21 3 

To 2J 4 

To r 214 

To 215 

Serenade 2j5 

Verses in an Album 216 



Ballad 



217 



CONTENTS. vh 

PAOl 

The Romance of Cologne 217 

The Key : A Moorish Romance 219 

Sonnets. 

To the Ocean 224 

Lear 225 

Sonnet to a Sonnet 225 

False Poets and True 226 

To 226 

For the Fourteenth of February 227 

To a Sleeping Child 227 

To a Sleeping Child 228 

" The Avorld is with me, and its many cares " 228 

HU3IOROUS. 

Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg 231 

A Morning Thought 306 

A Tale of a Trumpet 307 

No ! 332 

The Irish Schoolmaster 333 

Epigrams. 

On the Art-Unions 341 

The Superiority of Machinery 341 

The Forge : A Romance of the Iron Age 342 

To : Composed at Rotterdam 357 

The Season , 358 

Love 358 

Faithless Sally Brown 359 

Biaiica's Dream 361 

Over the Way 370 

Epicurean Reminiscences of a Sentimentalist 374 

The Carelesse Nurse Mayd 376 

Ode to Perry, the Inventor of the Patent Penyan Pen 377 

Number One 383 

Lines on the Celebration of Peace 385 

The Demon-ship 386 

Spring 389 

Faithless Nelly Gray 391 

The Flower 393 

The Sea-spell 394 

A Sailor's Apology for Bow-legs 398 

The Bachelor's Dream 400 

The Wee I\lan 403 

Death's Ramble 403 

The Progress of Art 407 



^ ' CONTENTS. 

A Fairy Tale ^^^ 

The Turtles '^^■* 

The Desert-born ^^^ 

427 
Love Lane ' 

Domestic Poems. 

I. Hymeneal Retrospections 429 

II. " The Sim was slumbering in the west, my daily labors past " . 430 

III. A Parental Ode to my Son 431 

IV. A Serenade 433 

A Plain Direction 434 

Equestrian Courtship 436 

An Open Question 437 

Morning Meditations 442 

A Black Job 444 

Ode to Rae Wilson, Esquire 451 

A Table of Errata 466 

A Kow at the Oxford Arms 470 

Etching Moralized 475 

Ode, on a Distant Prospect of Clapham Academy 483 

A Pietrospective Review 487 

Town and Country : An Ode 490 

Lament for the Decline of Chivalry 493 

Domestic Asides ; or, Truth in Parentheses 496 



CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 



The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies 1 

Love and Lunacy i^ 

Ballads, Serious, Very Serious, and Pathetic 71 

The I'oacher ,_„ 

The Supper Superstition .*.."*'. " 75 

A Waterloo Ballad ,.- 

The Duel l] 

TheGhost ^^ 

Sally Simpkin's Lament o- 

John Day ^^ 

Po m pey ' s Ghos t ...!...*.'.'*. .WW* * '■ * ' ^^ 



CONTENTS. ix 

PAQH 

Odes to diveks Persons and for sundky Occasions 95 

To Mr. Brunei 97 

To the Advocates for the Removal of Smithfield Market 99 

To the Camelopard 102 

To Dr. Hahnemann 104 

For St. Cecilia's Eve 109 

To Madame Hengler 115 

To Mr. Maltlius 118 

To St. Swithin 122 

For the Ninth of November 125 

To Sir John Bowring 130 

Notes 131 

Tales and Legends 139 

The Stag-Eyed Lady 141 

A Legend of Navarre 147 

The Llei'maid of Margate 153 

Our Lady's Chapel "158 

The Knight and the Dragon 162 

Miscellaneous Poems of Wit and Humor 173 

Stanzas on Coming of Age 175 

The Lo^t Heir 180 

A Singular Exhibition at Somerset House 185 

I 'm Going to Bombay 188 

Sonnet to a Decayed Seaman 191 

A Blow-up 192 

A True Story 197 

There 's No Romance in That! 200 

The Schoolmaster's Motto 204 

Huggins and Duggins 206 

A Storm at Hastings, and the Little Unknown 209 

Lines to a Lady on her Departure for India 217 

Sonnet 218 

December and May 219 

Moral Reflections on the Cross of St. Paul's 220 

A Valentine 221 

Sonnet on Steam 223 

A Recipe for Civilization 224 

Lines to a Friend at Cobham 229 

A Good Direction 230 

Sonnet 231 

To * * * *, with a Flask of Rhine Water . 231 

Sonnet to Lord Whamcliffe on his Game Bill 232 

A True Storjj- .......,., 23a 



CONTENTS. 

PAO« 

Epigrams composed on Reading a Diary lately Published 240 

The Monkey-Martyr ]....... 2iG 

Craniology 249 

A Parthian Glance ^52 

" Don-t you smell Fire? " 

The Widow -^_ 

, „ ^00 

Rhyme and Reason 

The Double Knock ^^^ 

The Devil's Album ^^^ 

Epigram on a late Cattle Show in Smithfield 261 

A Report from Below, 

Epigram on the Depreciated Money 265 

An Ancient Concert 



266 



The Drowning Ducks 269 



The Fall 



272 



The Steam Service 274 

A Lay of Real Life 278 

The Angler's Farewell 280 

Sea Song. After Dibdin 282 

The Apparition 283 

Little 0. P. — An African Fact 28* 

Conveyancing 286 

The Burning of the Love Letter 283 

Poem. —From the Polish £30 

French and English 292 

Our Village 294 

A Valentine 299 

To Fanny 300 

The Boy at the Nore 302 

Shooting Pains 304 

Paired not Matched 307 

The Compass, with Variations 309 

" Please to Ring the Belle " 315 

The Lament of Toby, the Learned Pig 316 

My Son and Heir 319 

The Fox and the Hen. — A Fable 322 

The Comet. — An Astronomical Anecdote 325 

I cannot Bear a Gun 328 

Trimmer's Exercise for the Use of Children 332 

To a Bad Hider 000 

Symptoms of Ossification 33^ 

Those Evening Bells ooe 

^°^«*" •••••^•■^^;^'!*!l!!!l!;!!!;;il!;;!i; 336 



CONTENTS. XI 

PAQl 

Dog-grel Verses, by a Poor Blind 331 

The kangaroo. — A Fable 34] 

Sonnet 34:i 

The Sub-Marine 344 

The Sweep's Complaint 347 

Cockle vs. Cackle 352 

On a Native Singer 356 

The Undying One 357 

A Custora-House Breeze 359 

Pain in a Pleasure-Boat 361 

Quaker Sonnet 364 

Literary and Literal 365 

I 'm not a Single Man 369 

To C. Dickens, Esq., on his Departure for America 373 

A Plan for Writing Blank Verse in Rhyme 374 

A Nocturnal Sketch 375 

Up the Rhine 377 

Love Language of a Merry Young Soldier 379 

Anacreontic, for the New Year , 380 

More Hullahbaloo 381 

Ode to the Printer's Devil 388 

Odes and Addresses to Great People. 

Preface 392-395 

Ode to Mr. Graham, the Aeronaut 397 

Ode to Mr. M'Adam 405 

A Friendly Address to Mrs. Fry, in Newgate 410 

Ode to Richard Martin, Esq., M. P. for Galway 416 

Ode to the Great Unknown 419 

Address to Mr. Dymoke, the Champion of England 428 

Ode to Joseph Grimaldi, Senior 431 

Address to Sylvanus Urban, Esq., Editor of " The Gentleman's Mag- 
azine," 436 

An Address to the Steam Washing Company 439 

Ode to Captain Parry , 448 

Address to R. W. Elliston, Esq., the Great Lessee 455 

Address to Maria Darlington, on her return to the Stage 459 

Ode to W. Kitchener, M. D 462 

An Address to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster 469 

Ode to H. Bodkin, P^sq., Secretary to the Society for the Suppression 

of Mendicity .474 

KoTEs 479 



LIFE OF THOMAS HOOD 



Thomas Hood was born in London in 1798. His father was a 
native of Scotland, and was for many years a partner in the firm of 
Vernor, Hood and Sharp, booksellers and publishers. Of his early 
life he has given the public an outline in his Literary Reminiscences, 
in which he tells us that when but twelve years of age he lost his 
father and elder brother, and became thenceforth the chief care of 
an affectionate and bereaved mother. From a brief memoir by Mrs. 
S. C. Hall we learn that he was remarkable for great vivacity of 
spirits, and prone to astonish good citizens, guests at his father's, no 
less than his fellow-pupils when at school, by the shrewdness and 
brilliancy of his observations upon topics of which it was thought 
he knew nothing. At a high school to which he was sent he picked 
up some Latin, became a tolerable English grammarian, and so good 
a French scholar that he earned a few guineas — his first literary 
fee — by revising for the press a new edition of " Paul et Virginie." 
A friend of the family, however, proposed to initiate him into the 
profitable mysteries of commerce, and young Hood found himself 
planted on a counting-house stool, where he remained long enough, 
at least, to collect mateiuals for a sonnet, in which he records his 
mercantile experiences. 

** Time was, I sat upon a lofty stool. 
At lofty desk, and with a clerkly pen 
Began each morning, at the stroke of ten, 
To write in Bell and Co.'s commercial school; 
In Warnford Court, a shady nook and oool. 



„ LIFE OF HOOD. 

The favorite retreat of merchant men ; 

Yet would my pen turn vagrant even then, 

And take stray dips in the Castalian pool. 

Now double entry — now a flowery trope — 

Mingling poetic honey with trade wax — 

Blogg, Brothers — Milton — Grote and Prescott — Pope — 

Bristles — and Hogg— Glyn Mills and Halifax — 

Rogers — and Towgood — Hemp — the Bard of Hope 

Barilla — Byron — Tallow — Burns — and Flax ? " 

ilis health failing, he was " shipped as per advice, in a Scotch 
smack," to his Other's relations in Dundee. There he made his first 
acquaintance with the press, an event of so much interest in the 
career of an author that no one can describe it but himself. Among 
the temporary sojourners in his boarding-house at Dundee was a 
legal antiquary, who had been sent for from Edinburgh to make 
some researches among the civic records. " It was mj humor to 
think," says Hood, " that, in Political as well as Domestic Economy, 
it must be better to sweep the Present than to dust the Past ; and 
cerUiin new brooms were recommended to the Town Council in a 
quizzing letter, which the then editor of the Dundee Advertiser or 
Chronicle thought fit to favor with a prominent place in his columns. 
' 'Tis pleasant sure,' sings Lord Byron, ' to see one's self in print;' 
and according to the popular notion I ought to have been quite up 
in my stirrups, if not standing on the saddle, at thus seeing myself, 
for the first strange time, set up in type. Memory recalls, however, 
but a very moderate share of exaltation, which was totally eclipsed, 
moreover, by the exuberant transports .of an accessory before the 
fact, whom, methinks, I still see in my mind's eye, rushing out of 
the printing-office with the wet sheet steaming in his hand, and flufc- 
tering all along the High Street, to announce breathlessly that ' we 
were in.' But G. was an indifferent scholar, even in English, and 
therefore thought the more highly of this literary feat. 

«' The reception of my letter in the Dundee newspaper encouraged 
me to forward a contribution to the Dundee Magazine, the editor 
of whicli was kind enough, as Winifred Jenkins says, to ' wrap my 
bit of nonsense under his Honor's Kiver,' without charging anything 
tor Its msertion. Here was success sufficient to turn a young author 
»t once mto ' a scribbling miller,' and make him sell himself, body 



LIFE OF HOOD. \l 

and soul, after the German fashion, to that minor Mephistophiles, 
the printer's devil ! Nevertheless, it was not till years afterwards, 
and the lapse of a term equal to an ordinary apprenticeship, that 
the Imp in question became really my Familiar. In the mean time 
I continued to compose occasionally, and, like the literary perform- 
ances of Mr. ^Teller senior, my lucubrations were generally commit- 
ted to paper, not in what is commonly called written hand, but an 
imitation of print. Such a course hints suspiciously of type and 
antitype, and a longing eye to the Row ; whereas it was adopted 
simply to make the reading more easy, and thus enable me the more 
readily to form a judgment of the effect of my little efforts. It ia 
more difficult than may be supposed to decide on the value of a work 
in MS., and especially when the hand-writing presents only a swell 
mob of bad characters, that must be severally examined and re- 
examined to arrive at the merits or demerits of the case. Print set- 
tles it, as Coleridge used to say : and, to be candid, I have more than 
once reversed, or greatly modified, a previous verdict, on seeing a 
rough proof from tlie press. 

" My mental constitution, however weak my physical one, was 
proof against that type-us fever which parches most scribblers till 
they are set up, done up, and maybe cut up, in print and boards. 
Perhaps I had read and trembled at the melancholy annals of those 
unfortunates, who, rashly undertaking to write for bread, had poi- 
soned themselves, like Chatterton, for want of it, or choked them- 
selves, like Otway, on obtaining it. Possibly, having learned to 
think humbly of myself, — there is nothing like early sickness and 
sorrow for ' taking the conceit ' out uf one, — my vanity did not pre- 
sume to think, with certain juvenile Tracticians, that I ' had a call' 
to hold forth in print for the edification of mankind. Perchance, 
the very deep reverence my reading had led me to entertain for our 
bards and sages deterred me from thrusting myself into the fellow- 
ship of beings that seemed only a little lower tluin the angels. How- 
ever, in spite of ^.lat very common excuse for publication, ' the advice 
of a friend,' who seriously recommended the submitting of my MSS. 
to a literary authority, with a view to his imprimatur, my slight 
acquaintance with the press was pushed no further." 

Hood resided two years at Dundee, when he returned to London, 
ind, manifesting a great talent for drawing, was apprenticed to his 



^j- LIFE OF HOOi^. 

uncle Mr. Robert Sands, an engraver. He was afterwards with one 
of the Le Keux in the same pursuit ; but, though working jn aqua 
fortis as he tells us, he still played with Castalj, now writing — aU 
monkeys arc imitators, and all young authors are monkeys — now 
writing a Bandit to match the Corsair, and now hatching a Lalla 
Crow by way of companion to Lalla Rookh. "VVe recur to his own 

Reminiscences : 

" In the mean time, while thus playing with literature, an event 
was ripening which was to introduce me to authorship in earnest, and 
make the muse, with whom I had only flirted, my companion for life. 
.... In the beginning of the year 1821 a memorable duel, originat- 
ing in a pen-and-ink quarrel, took place at Chalk Farm, and termi- 
nated in the death of ]Mr. John Scott, the able editor of the London 
Magazine. The melancholy result excited great interest, in which 1 
fully participated, little dreaming that his catastrophe involved any 
consequences of importance to myself. But, on the loss of its con- 
ductor, the periodical passed into other hands. The new proprietors 
were my friends ; they sent for me, and, after some preliminaries, I 
was duly installed as a sort of sub-editor of the London Magazine. 

'* It would be affectation to say that engraving was resigned with 
regret. There is always something mechanical about the art ; more- 
over, it is as unwholesome as wearisome to sit copper-fastened to a 
board, -wdth a cantle scooped out to accommodate your stomach, if 
you have one, painfully ruling, ruhng, and still ruling lines straight 
or crooked by the long hundred to the square inch, at the doubly- 
hazardous risk, which Wordsworth so deprecates, of ' growing double.' 
So, farewell AVoollett ! Strange ! Bartolozzi ! I have said my vanity 
did not rashly plunge me into authorship ; but no sooner was there a 
legitimate opening than I jumped at it, a la Grimaldi, head foremost, 
aad-was speedily behind the scenes. 

"To judge by my zeal and delight in my new pursuit, the bowl 
had at last found its natural bias. Not content with taking arti- 
des, hke candidates for holy orders, -with rejecting articles, like the 
Belgians, - 1 dreamt articles, thought articles, wrote articles, which 
were all mserted by the editor, of course with the concurrence of his 
deputy The more irksome parts of authorship, such as the correc- 
boa of ne pi^-'ss were to me labors of love. I received a revise from 
Mr. Baldwm s Mr. Parker, as if it had been a proof of his regard 



LIFE OF HOOD Xiil 

foTgave him all his slips, and really thought that printers' devils were 
not so black as they are painted. But my top-gallant glory was in 
' our contributors ' ! How I used to look forward to Elia ! and back- 
ward for Ilazlitt, and all round for Edward Herbert, and how ] used 
to look up to Allan Cunningham ! for at that time the London had a 
goodly list of writers — a rare company. It is now defunct; and 
perhaps no ex-periodical might so appropriately be apostrophized 
with the Irish funereal question, •* Arrah, honey, why did you die? ' 
Had not you an editor, and elegant prose writers, and beautiful 
poets, and broths of boys for criticism and classics, and wits and 
humorists — Elia, Gary, Procter, Cunningham, Bowring, Barton, 
Hazlitt, Elton, Hartley Coleridge, Talfourd, Soane, Horace Smith, 
Reynolds, Poole, Clare, and Thomas Benyon, with a power besides? 
Hadn't you Lions' Heads with Traditional Tales? Had n't you an 
Opium Eater, and a Dwarf, and a Giant, and a Learned Lamb, and 
a Green Man? Had n't you a regular Drama, and a Musical Report, 
and a Report of Agriculture, and an Obituary, and a Price Current, 
and a current price, of only half-a-crown ? Arrah, why did you die ? 
Why, somehow, the contributors fell away, the concern went into 
other hands — worst of all, a new editor tried to put the belles-lettres 
in utilitarian envelopes ; whereupon the circulation of the Miscel- 
lany, like that of poor LeFevre, got slower, slower, slower, and 
slower still — and then stopped forever ! It was a sorry scattering of 
those old Londoners ! Some went out of the country ; one (Clare) 
went into it. Lamb retreated to Colebrooke. Mr. Cary presented 
himself to the British Museum. Reynolds and Barry took to engross- 
ing when they should pen a stanza, and Thomas Benyon gave up 
literature. 

*' It is with mingled feelings of pride, pleasure and pain, that I 
revert to those old times, when the writers I had long known and 
admired in spirit were present to me in the flesh ; when I had the 
delight of listening to their wit and wisdom from their own lips, of 
gazing on their faces, and grasping their right hands. Familiar fig- 
ures rise before me, familiar voices ring in my ears, and, alas . 
amongst them are shapes that I must never see, sounds that I can 
never hear, again. Before my departure from England, I was one 
of the few who saw the grave close over the remains of one whom to 
know as a friend was to love as a relation. Never did a better soul 



^,^ LIFE OF HOOD. 

go to a better world ! Never, perhaps (giving the lie direct to th^ 
comiuon imputation of envy, malice and hatred, amongst the brother- 
hood), never did an author descend — to quote his favorite Sir T 
Browne — into ' the land of the mole and the pismire ' so hung with 
golden opinions, and honored and regretted with such sincere eulogies 
and elegies, by his contemporaries. To him, the first of these, my 
reminiscences, is eminently due, for I lost in him not only a dear and 
kind friend, but an invaluable critic,— one whom, were such literary 
adoptions in modern use, I might well name, as Cotton called Walton, 
my ' father.' 

" I was sitting, one morning, beside our editor, busily correcting 
proofs, when a visitor was announced, whose name, grumbled by a 
low, ventriloquial voice, like Tom Pipes calling from the hold thi-ough 
the hatchway, did not resound distinctly on my tympanum. How- 
ever, the door opened, and in came a stranger, a figure remarkable at 
a glance, with a fine head on a small, spare body, supported by two 
almost immaterial legs. He was clothed in sables, of a bygone 
fashion, but there was something wanting, or something present 
about him, that certified he was neither a divine, nor a physician, 
nor a sclioolmaster ; from a certain neatness and sobriety in his 
dress, coupled with his sedate bearing, he might have been taken, but 
that such a costume would be anomalous, for a Quaker in black. 
He looked still more like (what he really was) a literary modern 
antique, a new-old author, a living anachronism, contemporary at 
once with Burton the elder and Colman the younger. JMeanwhile, 
he advanced with rather a peculiar gait, his walk was planti- 
grade, and, with a cheerful 'How d'ye,' and one of the blandest, 
sweetest smiles that ever brightened a manly countenance, held out 
two fingers to the editor. The two gentlemen in black soon fell into 
discourse ; and, whilst they conferred, the Lavater principle within 
me set to work upon the interesting specimen thus presented to its 
speculations. It was a striking, intellectual face, full of wiry lines, 
physiognomical quips and cranks, that gave it great character. 
There was much earnestness about the brows, and a deal of specula- 
tion m the eyes, which were brown and bright, and ' quick in turn- 
ing ; ' the nose, a decided one, though of no established order; and 
there was a handsome smartness about-the mouth. Altogether, it 
wa5 no common face - none of those wiUow-paitern ones, which nature 



LIFE OF HOOD. XV 

turns out by thousands at her potteries ; — but more like a chanc<: 
specimen of the Chinese ware, one to the set — unique, antique, 
quaint. No one who had once seen it could pretend not to know it 
again. It was no face to lend its countenance to any confusion oi 
persons in a Comedy of Errors. You might have sworn to it piece- 
meal— a separate affidavit for every feature. In short, his face was 
as original as his figure ; his figure, as his character ; his character, 
as his writings ; his writings, the most original of the age. After 
the literary business had been settled, the editor invited his con- 
tributor to dinner, adding, ' We shall have a hare — ' 

* And — and — and — and many friends ! * 

" The hesitation in the speech, and the readiness of the allusion, 
were alike characteristic of the individual, whom his familiars will 
perchance have recognized already as the delightful essayist, the cap- 
ital critic, the pleasant wit and humorist, the delicate-minded and 
large-hearted Charles Lamb ! He was shy, like myself, with strang- 
ers ; so that, despite my yearnings, our first meeting scarcely amounted 
to an introduction. We were both at dinner, amongst the hare's 
many friends ; but our acquaintance got no further, in spite of a 
desperate attempt on my part to attract his notice. His complaint 
of the Decay of Beggars presented another chance ; I wrote on coarse 
paper, and in ragged English, a letter of thanks to him, as if from 
one of his mendicant clients, but it produced no efi'ect. I had given 
up all hope, when, one night, sitting sick and sad in my bed-room, 
racked with the rheumatism, the door was suddenly opened, the 
well-known quaint figure in black walked in without any formality, 
and, with a cheerful ' Well, boy, how are you? ' and the bland, sweet 
smile, extended the two fingers. They were eagerly clutched, of 
course, and from that hour we were firm friends." 

In 182G Hood made a collection of his contributions to the London 
Magazine, which, with some other pieces, was issued under the titk- 
of Whims and Oddities. His first book had been published anony- 
mously. It was styled Odes and Addresses to Great People, and was 
written in conjunction with his brother-in-law, Mr. J. H. Reynolds. 
This work had introduced Hood to the public as a humorist of no 
common power ; a reputation which had been increased by his produc- 
tions iu the Magazine — a journal of which the Wesimhister Revieu 



^^-i LIFE OF HOOD. 

said xvith great truth, that it was during its short life cleverly sup 
ported by a knot of men whom a too ardent love of the ancient and 
quaint and homely in literature, hurried into sundry faults of taste, 
Avhioh the sectarian influence of coterie intercourse confirmed into 

mannerism. 

Hood's National Tales appeared in 1827, and was followed by a 
volume containing The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies, Hero and 
Lcander , Lycus the Centaur, and other poems. In 1829 he commenced 
the Com'ic Annual, which was continued for nine years. For one 
year he edited The Gem, in which The Dream of Eugene Aram 
first appeared ; afterwards, issued in a separate brochure, with designs 
by W. Harvey. In 1834 he published Tylney Hall, a novel with 
which we remember to have been very much entertained, and which, 
wo think, never enjoyed the flivor to which it was entitled by its merits. 
In 1836 he published a new edition of his Whims and Oddities in 
Prose and Verse ; and in 1838 a selection of his contributions to the 
Comic Aimual, with new matter, in a series of monthly numbers, 
under the title of Hood's Own. Ill health now compelled him to go 
to the continent to recruit; and while in Belgium he published his 
pleasant little volume, Up the Rhine. During his absence an article 
on his works appeared in the Westminster Review, from which we 
extract the following description of Hood as he appeared in social 
life : 

" "'\Ve Ijegan by stating our conviction that few writers were so 
imperfectly understood as he of the ' Comic Annual ' is ; few, we 
may add, have been more sparingly known in the world of society. 
Hood has never sought the tinsel honors of Lionship. A shape of 
slight figure, with pale and pensive countenance, may, indeed, have 
flitted through society occasionally, without causing any remark ; 
none of the Lady AVori-ymores or Capcl Loffts, who make themselves 
ridiculous, and their literary proteges disrespectable, by their sense- 
les ecstasies, — even dreaming that that slight figure was moving to 
and fro to gather simples of humor and folly and absurdity, but not 
in the spirit of a Sycoras, — that the rarest conceit could twinkle 
through the spectacles which give a decent gravity to those eyes, or 
that the most luxuriant whimsies and the most irresistible repartees 
could drop, rirli as oil, if not always sweet as honey, from the ccrners 
of that impissive-looking mouth. But we know better ; and. as the 



LIFE OF HOOD. XVii 

sea divides him from us, may say as much without any fear of cuf 
frisnd interposing to prevent us. We have sat by his side througli the 
' small hours,' listening to tales of ghosts, remembered, improved oi 
improvised, — such as night-watchers in the nineteenth century are 
rarely permitted to enjoy. We have heard him — apart from the 
listening circle — accompany the long-winded tale of a traveller with 
such a running fire of notes and comments aside as the brethren of 
the Row would give gold to gather and print. We have watched 
him 80 provoke the component members of a social rubber in that 
moment of intense interest when the game hung on a card, that odd 
tricks have been forgotten, trumps wasted, and all four hands thrown 
down, in an universal paroxysm. We have seen his Yorick spirit 
sending forth its sparkling bubbles, in despite of trial and vicissitude : 
— for may we not allude to these, when in his preface to his last new 
undertaking our friend has himself pointed thereat? His education 
as an .engraver has given him an eye of singular keenness, — his 
genius a fancy ever ready, and a wit rarely blunt, rarely indebted to 
others for its weapon ; and these are as much manifested in his daily 
intercourse with his friends as in his more ceremonious commerce 
with the public. There is not a page in all his works more thor- 
oughly humorous than the account we once heard him deliver of a 
hurried labor at the ' Comic Annual,' when, at the eleventh hour, 
like Mozart over the overture to Don Giovanni, he fell asleep, and 
continued (he declares) to dictate, for some good ten minutes, ere 
his amanuensis, who had been plying the pen for half an hour, her- 
self scarcely less somnolent, discerned the least change in his diction, 
the least abatement of his fluency. There is no dilemma recounted 
by Mrs. Twigg, or Mrs. Jones, half so diverting as those with details 
of which his familiar letters from the continent are filled. But with 
these the world will perhaps one day be edified ; and it would be un- 
fair, by attempting them in feebler phrase, to forestall the new ' Pil- 
grim of the Rhine.' " 

Mrs. S. 0. Hall's reminiscences of the poet relate to about tho 
same period of his life : 

" I remember the first time I met him was at one of the pleasant 
soirees of the painter Martin; for a moment I turned away — aa 
many have done — disappointed, for the countenance, in repose, was 
of melancholy rather than of mirth ; there was something calm, ever? 



^^.- LIFE OF HOOD. 

to solemnity, in the upper portion of the face, which, in public,^ was 
Beldom reheved by the eloquent play of the mouth, or the occasional 



Bparkle of the observant eye ; and it was a general remark mnong his 

acqu 

many ,,11. ..e.«-. - - , 

lan, unless, like a sounding-board, he make a great noise at a 



acquaintances, that he was too quiet for ' the^ world.' There^ are 



wit-watchers to be found in society, who think there is nothing 



in a in? 



small touch; who consider themselves aggrieved, unless an ' author' 
open at once like a book, and speak as he writes ; this vulgar notion, 
like others of the same stamp, creeps into good society, or what is so 
considered, and I have seen both Hook and Hood 'set,' as a pointer 
sets a partridge, by persons who glitter in evanescent light simply by 
repeating what such men have said. Mr. Hook, perhaps, liked this 
celebrity, — this sitting and staring, this lion-hunt, — so different 
from the heart-worship paid to veritable greatness. Mr. Hood did 
not ; he was too sensitive, too refined, to endure it ; the dislike to 
being pointed at as the ' man who was funny ' kept him out of a 
crowd, where there were always numbers who really honored his 
genius, and loved him for his gentle and domestic virtues. It was 
only among his friends that his playful fancy flourished, or that he 
yielded to its influence ; although, strictly speaking, ' social ' in all 
his feelings, he never sought to stimulate his wit by the false poison 
of draughts of wine ; nor was he ever more cheerful than when at his 
own fireside he enjoyed the companionship of his dear and devoted 
wife. He was playful as a child; and his imagination, pure as 
bright, frolicked with nature, Avhom he loved too well ever to outrage 
or insult by slight or misrepresentation. And yet he was city born 
and city bred, — born in the unpoetic district of 'the Poultry,' — 
though born, as it were, to letters, for his father was a bookseller." 

On the return of Hood to England, he became editor of the Neto 
Monthly Magazine, and, on retiring from it in 1843, he published 
the best of his writings in prose and verse in that journal, with some 
additions, with the title of "Whimsicalities." In 1844 he started 
HooiVs Magazine, his last periodical, and continued to contribute to 
its pages until within a month before his death. In his later days 
he was an occasional contributor to Punch, where his celebrated 
Song of the Shirt made its first appearance. 

Hood died on the third of May, 1845, leaving a widow and two 
children. He died a poor man. He had no money-making faculty. 



LIFE OF HOOD. XIX 

He could delight the world with his genius, but he did not make a 
•rood commercial use of it. "With all his talents and fame, he did 
not manage to coin them into gold. Soon after his death a subscrip- 
tion was commenced for the benefit of his family. The project was 
communicated to the public in a single paragraph, which will be read 
with melancholy interest : 

" The late Thomas Hood. — This distinguished writer, who has, 
for upwards of twenty years, entertained the pu1)lic with a constant 
succession of comic and humoristic works, in the whole range of ivhich 
not a single line of immoral tendency, or calculated to pain an indi- 
vidual, can be pointed out, whose poems and serious writings rank 
among the noblest modern contributions of our national literature, 
and whose pen was ever the ready and efficient advocate of the unfor- 
tunate and the oppressed (as recently, for instance, in the admirable 
* Song of the Shirt,' which gave so remarkable an impulse to the 
movement on behalf of the distressed needlewomen) , has left, by his 
death, a widow and two children in straitened and precarious cir- 
cumstances, with no other means of subsistence than a small pension, 
terminable on the failure of the widow's life, barely sufficient to sup- 
ply a family of three with common necessaries, and totally inadequato 
for the education and advancement of the orphan children. Even 
this scanty resource has been, of necessity, forestalled to a consider- 
able extent during the last five months, in order to meet the heavj 
sick-room and funeral expenses. Under these circumstances, a sub 
scription for the family has been set on foot. The admirers of 
Thomas Hood throughout the country will, it is hoped, take thir' 
opportunity of publicly testifying their recognition of his genius anf 
their sense of his personal worth." 

Of his latter days an affecting account was given in the Literar^ 
Gazette, shortly after his death : 

" Thomas Hood died on Saturday morning. A spirit of true phi 
lanthropy has departed from its earthly tenement ; the light of a 
3urious and peculiar wit has been extinguished ; the feeling am, 
pathos of a natural poet have descended into the grave ; and left 
those who knew, admired, and loved these qualities, to feel and do- 



^jj LIFE OF HOOD. 

plore the loss of him in whom thej were so preeminently united 
Yet wo can hardly say that we lament his death. Poor Hood ! hig 
sportive humor, like the rays from a crackling fire in a dilapidated 
building, had long played among the fractures of a ruined consti- 
tution, °and flashed upon the world through the flaws and rents of a 
shattered wreck. Yet, infirm as was the fabric, the equal mind wag 
never disturbed to the last. He contemplated the approach of death 
with a composed philosophy, and a resigned soul. It had no terrors 
*br him. A short while ago we sat for hours by his bed-side in gen- 
eral and cheerful conversation, as when in social and healthful inter- 
jouree. Then he spoke of the certain and unavoidable event about to 
take place with perfect unreserve, unruffled calmness ; and the lesson 
and example how to die was never given in a more impressive and 
consolatory manner than by Thomas Hood. His bodily sufferings 
had made no change in his mental character. He was the same as 
in liis publications, — at times lively and jocular, at times serious and 
affecting; and upon the one great subject of a death-bed hope, he de- 
clared himself, as throughout life, opposed to canters and hypocrites, 
— a class he had always detested and written against ; while he set 
the higliest price upon sincere Christianity, whose works of charity 
and mercy bore witness to the integrity and purity of the faith pro- 
fessed. ' Our common friend,' he said, ' Mrs. E , I love ; for she 

is truly rcUrjious, and not a pious, woman.' He seemed anxious that 
his sentiments on the momentous question should not be misrepre- 
eented ; and that his animosity against the pretended should not be 
misconstrued into a want of just estimation for the real. 

" Another subject upon which he dwelt with much earnestness and 
gratitude, was the grant of a pension of one hundred pounds a year 
to his wife. ' There is, after all,' he observed, ' much of good to 
counterl3alance the bad in this world. I have now a better opinion 
of It than I once had, when pressed by wrongs and injuries.' Two 
autograph letters from Sir Robert Peel, relating to this pension, gave 
him mtonse gratification, and were indeed most honorable to the 
heart of tlie writer, whose warmth in the expression of personal solio- 
.tudo lor himself and his family, and of admiration for his produc 
tionn (,vith which Sir Robert seemed to be well acquainted), we firmly 
behe^^ imparted more delight to the dying man than even the proi 
pect that those so dear to him would not be left destitute. In his 



LIFE OF HOOD. XXI 

ai>6wer to the minister's first commixnication, he had alludeJ to the 
tendency of his writings ever being on the side of humanity and 
Tirder, and not of the modern school, to separate society into two 
classes, the rich and poor, and to inflame hatred on the one side, and 
fear on the other. This avowal appeared, from the reply which 
acknowledged its truth, to have been very acceptable to the premier, 
from whom the gift had emanated." 

On the 18th July, 1854, a monument was raised to the memory 
of Hood ; and in the sketch of the proceedings on this occasion, and 
the speech of j\Ir. Monckton Milnes, which we copy from the London 
Times, we find a fit conclusion to this brief account of his life. Mr. 
Milnes observed : 

" I have been asked to come here to-day to say a few words before 
we open to your view the monument which has been erected to the 
memory of Hood. It is now some years since we laid our friend below 
us in this pleasant place, where he rests after a long illness — after a 
life of noble struggle with much adversity, and of nothing but good to 
his fellow-men. It is now thought advisable that a few words should 
be said before that ceremony takes place. It is rather a habit of our 
neighbors the French than of ourselves, to make eulogistic orations 
at the tombs of our friends. I do not think the habit in general is 
]tleasing to our taste ; but there are reasons why, on the present 
occasion, it may not be unbecoming. At the same time, it is very 
difficult to perform this duty, because we must feel that, if ever there 
was a character of simplicity and humility, it was that of tlie late 
Mr. Thomas Hood ; and it would not become us, on the present occa- 
sion, to indulge in eulogies Avhich, if he were here himself, would be 
distasteful to him ; for he was a man who ever retired from the 
crowd, and who loved, us he has said in his own classical and beau- 
tiful language : 

' To kneel remote upon the simple sod, 
And sue, in formd pauperis, to God.' 

Our German friends call a cemetery of this kind ' God's field,' and 
we must not desecrate it by vain and pompous eulogies over a fellow- 
mortnl. All wo can do is to commit him, with all his errors, to the 
taercy of God, and at the same time to keep his memory dear and 
his fame bright among us. This is the purpose of the friends of Mr. 
Thomas Hood who have raised this structure. Some of them were 



^xii LIFE OF HOOD. 

familiar with him from his youth - the eyes of others never lit upon 
his person. It would be invidious to single out any of these friends 
of the poet ; but I may mention the name of one lady who is well 
known to us all, Miss Eliza Cook, to whose exertions, in all quarter? 
of society, the erection of this monument is very much owing 
ix.mc, too, have contributed to it who did not appreciate him during 
hia lifetime ; — to them may be applicable his beautiful lines : 

'Farewell ! we did not know thy worth ; 

But thou art gone, and now 't is prized. 
So angels walked unknown on earth, 
But when they flew were recognized.' 

" He was a poet — a poet in the true sense of the word ; but at the 
same time 1 by no means think that his poetical powers were of so 
great and remarkable a character that his reputation would have 
become such as it is if it had been confined to his poetical works 
•done. By his poetical works I mean those developments of pure im- 
agination, which are more interesting to literary men than they can 
be to the world in general. In all these works we recognize not 
only the lyrical facilities which enable many a youth to throw out 
good poetry, but the refined taste and cultivated mind of mature 
years. But his fame — that for which he is chiefly known to us — 
belongs to him as an English humorist ; and, in using that word, I 
use no word inapplicable to the occasion or unworthy of his fame. 
It is the boast of our Uterature, as distinguished from that of all 
otiior nations, that from the earliest times of its history we find 
hiunoristic writers who delighted the age in which they lived and 
those which succeeded them. In that category we may place Shaks- 
pe^ire himself, and we may draw, downwards, a long genealogical 
list of humorists, ending with the names of Charles Lamb, Sydney 
Smith, and Thomas Hood. I do not know whether my opinions in 
this matter may be peculiar ; but I have often thought that if I 
wore to pray to Heaven for a gift to be given to any person in whose 
moral and intellectual welfar. I was especially interested, it would 
be that he might have the gift of humor. The gift of humor is, as 
t were, the balance of all the faculties. It enables a man to see the 
•strong contrasts of life around him ; it prevents him being too much 
devoted to h.6 uwn knowledge, and too proud of his ow)i imaftina- 



LIFE OF HOOD 

ti:?n, and it also disposes him to submit, with a wise and pious 
patience, to the vicissitudes of his daily existence. It is thus that 
humorists, such as Hood has been, and as Dickens is now, are great 
benefactors of our species, not only on account of Che amusement 
which they give us, but because they are great moral teachers. The 
humorous writings of Mr. Thomas Hood have instructed you many 
years, and will instruct your children after you. T should mention, 
however, that this combination of poetry and humor does not pro- 
duce, in all persons, the same blessed eiFects that it has produced 
here. In some cases it has degenerated into impatient satire and 
fierce revolt against the better feelings of humanity. In such a mind 
as that of Swift, it produced these evil effects ; but in such a mind 
as Hood's, it produced directly the contrary : it generated a noble and 
generous sympathy with the wants and desires of his fellow-creat- 
ures ; and it is for this combination of poetical genius and humor 
and earnest philanthropy, that his name has grown up to become, as 
it were, a proverb for great wit united with deep and solemn sympa- 
thies. We recognize, ladies and gentlemen, these rare merits of Mr. 
Thomas Hood in the productions of his mature life, such as ' The 
Bridge of Sighs,' and 'The Song of the Shirt,' — verses which 
appear occasionally, and only occasionally, in literature, and which 
seem like products of the acme of the human mind — such products 
as the prison-song of Lovelace, the elegy of Gray, the sea-songs of 
Campbell, ' The Burial of Sir John Moore,' and the ' iSIay Queen ' 
of Alfred Tennyson — poems which, though they cost their authors 
much less troulile than many of their less successful works, are, nev- 
ertheless, the anchors (so to speak) of their world-wide fame. These 
beautiful poems of Mr. Thomas Hood have had a deep moral effect 
on different classes of society. If there are among those poems, and 
others of Mr. Thomas Hood, some expressions of stern indignation 
— if there are some passages which may seem almost exceptions tc 
the general amiability of his character — it is that he wiahed to 
enforce the moral, that 

' Evil is wrought by want of thought 
As well as want of heart.' 

1 do not think therefore, that there was any levity in hia character 
because he was an humorist. I do not think, because you find in Ids 



xxiv LIFE OF HOOD. 

works that with his rich wit and his great possessions of lauguagt 
he delighted to jilay with words as if, almost, they were fireworks, 
there was a want of gravity or seriousness in his composition. In a 
poem of his which is a perfect repertorium of wit and spirit, he 
seejBS conscious of this himself, for he writes to the effect that — 

However critics may take oflfence, 

A double meaning gives double sense.' 

And there are, no doubt, certain subtile faculties about us which 
enable us to find such great pleasure in the combination of this agil- 
ity of diction with seriousness of purpose. Ladies and gentlemen 
who have raised this monument, I was informed by a friend of mine, 
and a dear friend of his, who remained with him to the last — Mr. 
"Ward — that Mr. Thomas Hood was in very great disease and suffer- 
ing, that he Avas laboring under some pecuniary difficulties — that 
his mind was not easj'- on those points, and that it would be a great 
relief to him to ol)tain some assistance, if he could do so by any 
honorable means, for he was determined to employ no other. I went 
on that occasion to Sir R. Peel, from whom I met with the most per- 
fect sjanpathy us regarded the object I had in view ; and it was to 
me a most interesting fact that that great man, governing the desti- 
nies of this mighty nation, and engaged as he was in the gravest 
pursuits, could nevertheless be drawn, by the force of human sym- 
pathy, to t;ike a deep interest in this simple man of letters. What 
was done on that occasion was sufficient for the purpose. I will ask 
you, therefore, in looking upon this bust, to regard it as a memorial 
not only of the interest of his friends, but as a memorial of national 
i'literest for a national name. It consists, as you perceive, of a plain 
bust upon a pedestal. I have always thought that a man's bust is 
tne best monument which could be raised to him ; it is that which ig 
most calculated to show people who come after him what he really 
mis, and it is less dumb and less vacant than the monuments wdiich 
we sec mostly around us. It is perfectly true that, generally speak- 
ing, we find that busts represent the dead when we could wish they 
represented the living ; it is perfectly true, also, that in our every- 
lay walk among living busts we see men of genius, whom we do not 
recognize, and whose services and virtues we do not honor ; and 
after all, this may, ])erhaps, be but a poor acknowledgment of the 



LIFE OF HOOD. XXV 

worth of the poet and humorist ; but still here it is, and wo have 
raised it, and I trust all will feel that in so doing we have not done 
honor to him, but to ourselves. I remember that at the time of his 
fatal illness I was very much haunted with the recollection of some 
lines of his, which, I dare say, some of you remember. They are 
contained in a little poem called The Death-bed — 

, • We watched her breathing through the night. 

Her breathing soft and low. 
As in her breast the wave of life 
Kept heaving to and fro. 

* So silently we seemed to speak. 

So slowly moved about. 
As we had lent her half our powers 
To eke her living out. 

* Our very hopes belied our fears. 

Our fears our hopes belied — 
We thought her dying when she slept, 
And sleeping when she died. 

*For when the morn came dim and sad. 

And chill with early showers. 
Her quiet eyelids closed — she had 
Another morn than ours.' 

Thomas Hood has now another morn than ours — may that morn 
have brightened into perfect day ! May his spirit look down with 
gratification upon us who have raised this modest homage to him — 
may he look down with pleasure on those he has left behind him, and 
who inherit his honor and his name — and may we all bear home 
with us the consoling reflection, that the fame of which a wise 
and honest man should be ambitious is not that of acquiring wealth, 
power, or even earning clamorous applause, but the attaining of 
such homage as we are now paying to one who among us was a 
brother and a friend — one who may make us at the same time 
thankful to the age in which it has pleased Providence to cast cur 
lot, and grateful to the race and country of which we are commjn 
eitizens and men." 

The monument consists of a large bronze bust of Hood, elevated 
cm a handsome pedestal of polished red granite. On a slab beneath 



xxvi LIFE OF HOOD. 

the bust is his own self-inscribed epitaph —" He sang ' The Song of 
the Shirt ; ' " and upon the projecting front of the pedestal th« 
inscription is carved — ''In memory of STJomas ?^ooU, born 23d 
of May, 1798 ; died 3d of May, 1845 ; erected by pul^lic subscrip- 
tion A.D. 1854." On the sides of the pedestal are medallions illus- 
trating " The Bridge of Sighs " and " The Dream of Eugene Aram.'* 
The monument is the work of Mr. Matthew Noble. It is simple in 
design, and correctly executed, and looks well in the midst of the 
medley of monuments with which Kensal-green is filling. But, in- 
dependently of any consideration of that kind, this must ever be 
one of the chief treasures of the place. 



LAYS OF HUMANITY. 



THE LAT OF THE LABOE.ER. 



It Tvas a gloomy evening. The sun had set, angry and 
threatening, lighting up the horizon with lurid flame and 
flakes of blood-red — slowly quenched by slants of distant 
rain, dense and dark as segments of the old deluge. At 
last the whole sky was black, except the low driving grey 
scud, amidst which faint streaks of lightning wandered 
capriciously towards their appointed aim, like young fire- 
fiends playing on their errands. 

" There will be a storm !" whispered Nature herself, as 
the crisp fallen leaves of autumn started up with a hollow 
rustle, and began dancing a wild round, with a whirlwind 
of dust, like some frantic orgy, ushering in a revolution. 

" There will be a storm !'"' I echoed, instinctively looking 
round for the nearest shelter, and making towards it at my 
best pace. At such times the proudest heads will bow to 
very low lintels ; and setting dignity against a ducking, I 
very willingly condescended to stoop into " The Plough." 

It was a small hedge alehouse, too humble for the refine- 
ment of a separate parlor. One large tap-room served for 
all comers, gentle or simple, if gentlefolks, except from 
stress of weather, ever sought such a place of entertain- 
ment. Its scanty accommodations were even meaner than 
usual : the Plough had sufiered from the hardness of the 



4 THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 

times, and exhibited the bareness of a house recently un- 
furnished by the broker. The aspect of the public room 
was cold and cheerless. There was a mere glimmer of fire 
in the grate, and a single unsnuifed candle stood guttering 
over the neck of the stone bottle in which it was stuck, in 
the middle of the plain deal table. The low ceiling, black- 
ened bj smoke, hung overhead like a canopy of gloomy 
clouds ; the walls were stained with damp, and patches of 
the plaster had peeled oif from the naked laths. Ornament 
there was none, except a solitary print, gaudily daubed in 
body-colors, and formerly glazed, as hinted by a small trian- 
gle of glass in one corner of the black frame. The subject, 
"the Shipwrecked Mariner," whose corpse, jacketed in 
bright sky-blue, rolled on a still brighter strip of yellow 
shingle, between two grass-green wheat-sheaves with white 
ears — but intended for foaming billows. Above all, the 
customary odors were wanting ; the faint smell of beer and 
ale, the strong scent of spirits, the fumes of tobacco ; none 
of them agreeable to a nice sense, but decidedly missed with 
a feeling akin to disappointment. Rank or vapid, they be- 
longed to the place, representing, though in an infinitely 
lower key, the bouquet of Burgundy, the aroma of choice 
liqueurs — the breath of Social Enjoyment. 

Yet there was no lack of company. Ten or twelve men, 
some young, but the majority of the middle age, and one or 
two advanced in years, were seated at the sordid board. 
As many glasses and jugs of various patterns stood before 
them ; but mostly empty, as was the tin tankard from which 
they had been replenished. Only a few of the party in the 
neighborhood of a brown earthenware pitcher had full cups : 
but of the very small ale called Adam's. Their coin nr.d 
credit exhausted, they were keeping up the forms of drink- 
ing and good fellowship with plain water. From the same 



THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 5 

cause, a bundle of new clay pipes lay idle on the table, un- 
soiled by the Indian weed. 

A glance sufficed to show that the company were of the 
laboring class — men with tanned, furrowed faces, and hairy 
freckled hands — who smelt " of the earth, earthy," and 
were clad in fustian and leather, in velveteen and corduroj^, 
glossy with wear or wet, soiled by brown clay and green 
moss, scratched and torn by brambles, wrinkled, warped, 
and threadbare with age. and variously patched — garments 
for need and decency, not show ; — for if, amid the prevail- 
ing russets, drabs, and olives, there was a gayer scrap of 
green, blue, or red, it was a tribute not to vanity but ex- 
pediency—some fragment of military broadcloth or livery 
plush. 

As I entered, the whole party turned their eyes upon 
me, and having satisfied themselves by a brief scrutiny that 
my face and person were unknown to them, thenceforward 
took no more notice of me than of their own shadows on 
the wall. I could have fancied myself invisible, they re- 
sumed their conversation with so little reserve. The topics, 
such as poor men discuss among themselves : — the dearness 
of bread, the shortness of work, the long hours of labor, 
the lowness of Avages, the badness of the weather, the sick- 
liness of the season, the signs of a hard winter, the general 
evils of want, poverty, and disease; but accompanied by 
such particular revelations, such minute details, and frank 
disclosures, as should only have come from persons talking 
in their sleep! The vulgar indelicacy, methought, with 
which they gossiped before me of family matters — the 
brutal callousness with which they exposed their private 
affairs, the whole history of bed, board, and hearth, the se- 
crets of home ! But a little more listening and reflection 
converted my disgust into pity and concern. Alas ! I hftd 



THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 

foro-otten tbat the lives of certain classes of our species have 
been laid almost as bare and open as those of the beasts of 
the field ! The poor men had no domestic secrets — no pri- 
vate affairs ! All were public — matters of notoriety — friend 
and foe concurring in the advertisement. The law had fer- 
reted their huts, and scheduled their three-legged tables 
and bottomless chairs. Statistical Grosses had taken notes, 
and printed them, of every hole in their coats. Political 
reporters had calculated their incomings and outgoings down 
to fractions of pence and half ounces of tea, and had sup- 
plied the minutiae of their domestic economy for paragraphs 
and leading articles. Charity, arm in arm with Curiosity, 
and clerical Philanthropy, linked perhaps with a religious 
Inquisitor, had taken an inventory of their defects, moral 
and spiritual ; wh ilst medical visitors had inspected and re- 
corded their physical sores, cancerous or scrofulous, their 
humors and tlieir tumors. 

Society, like a politician, had turned upon them the full 
blaze of its bull's eye — exploring the shadiest recesses of 
their privacy, till their means, food, habits, and modes of 
existence were as minutely familiar as those of the animal- 
culae exhibited in Regent Street by the solar microscope. 
They had no longer any decent appearances to keep up — ■ 
any shabby ones to mask with a better face — any petty 
shifts to slur over— any household struggles to conceal. 
Their circumstances were known intimately, not merely to 
next-door neighbors, and kith and kin, but to the whole 
parish, the whole county, the whole country. It was one 
of their last few privileges to discuss in common with the 
Parliament, the Press, and the Public, the deplorable de- 
tails of their own affairs. • Their destitution was a naked 
Great Fact, and they talked of it like proclaimed Bank- 
rupts, as they were, in the wide world's Gazette. 



THE LAY OF THE LABORER. < 

''What matters?" said a grey-headed man, in fustian, 
in answer to a warning nudge and whisper from his neigh- 
bor. " If walls has ears, they are welcome to what they 
can ketch — ay, and the stranger to boot — if so be he don't 
know all about us already — for it 's all in print. AVhat we 
yarn, and wdiat we spend — what we eat, and what we drink 
— what we wear, and the cost on it from top to toe — where 
we sleep, and how many on ns lie in a bed — our consariiS 
are as common as waste land/"' 

" And as many geese and donkies turned on to them, I 
do think !" cried a young fellow in velveteens — " to hear 
how folk cackle and bray about our states. And then the 
queer remedies as is prescribed, like, for a starving man .' 
A Bible says one— a Reading made Easy says another — 
a Temperance Medal says another — or maybe a Hagricul- 
tural Prize. But what is he to eat, I ax ? Why, says one, 
a Corkassian Jew — says another, a cricket ball — says an- 
other, a May-pole — and says another, the Wenus bound for 
Horsetrailye." 

"As if the idle hands and empty pockets," said the 
grey-headed man, '' did not make signs of themselves for 
work and wages — and a hungry belly for bread and cheese/' 

" That's true, any how," said one of the water-drinkers. 
'' I only wish a doctor would come at this minute, and lis- 
ten with his telescope on my stomach, and he would hear it 
a-talking as plain as our magpie, and saying, I wants wit- 
ties." 

There was a general peal of mirth at this speech, but 
brief and ending abruptly, as laughter does, when extorted 
by the odd treatment of a serious subject — a flash followed 
by a deeper gloom. The conversation then assumed .1 
graver tone ; each man in turn recounted the trials, priva- 
tions, and visitations, of himself, his wife, and children, or 



8 THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 

his neic^hbor's— not mentioned with fierceness, intermingling 
oaths and threats, nor with bitterness— some few allusions 
excepted to harsh overseers or miserly masters — but as sol- 
diers or sailors describe the hardships and suiferings thej 
have had to encounter in their rough vocation, and evident- 
ly endured in their own persons with a manly fortitude. 
If the speaker's voice faltered, or his eyes moistened, it was 
only when he painted the sharp bones showing through the 
skin, the skin through the rags, of the wife of his bosom ; 
or how the traditional Wolf, no longer to be kept from the 
door, had rushed in and fastened on his young ones. What 
a revelation it was ! Fathers, with more children than shil- 
lings per week — mothers travailing literally in the straw — 
infants starving before the parents' eyes, with cold, and 
famishing for food ! Human creatures, male and female, 
old and young, not gnawed and torn by single woes, but 
worried at once by Winter, Disease, and Want, as by 
that triple-headed Dog, whelped in the Realm of Tor- 
ments ! 

My ears tingled, and my cheeks flushed with self-re- 
proach, remembering my fretful impatience under my own 
inflictions, no light ones either, till compared with the heavy 
complications of anguish, moral and physical, experienced 
by those poor men. My heart swelled with indignation, 
my soul sickened with disgust, to recall the sobs, sighs, tears, 
and hysterics — the lamentations and imprecations bestowed 
by pampered Selfishness on a sick bird or beast, a sore fin- 
ger, a swelled toe, a lost rubber, a missing luxury, an ill- 
made garment, a culinary failure !— to think of the cold 
looks and harsh words cast by the same lips, eloquent in 
self-indulgence, on nakedness, starvation, and poverty. 
Wealth, with his own miUion of money, pointing to the 
new half-farthings as fitting money for the million— Glut- 



THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 9 

tony, gorged with dainties, washed down by iced cham- 
pagne, complacently commending his humble brethren to 
the brook of Elisha and the salads of Nebuchadnezzar ; 
and Fashion, in furs and velvet, comfortably beholding her 
squalid sisters shivering in robes de zephyr, woven by win- 
ter itself, with a warp of the north^ and the woof of an east 
wind ! 

" The job up at Bosely is finished," said one of tlie mid- 
dle-aged men. " I have enjoyed but three days' work in 
the last fortnight, and God above knows when I shall get 
another, even at a shilling a day. And nine mouths 
to feed, big and little — and nine backs to clothe— and the 
rent behind-hand — and never a bed to lie on, and my good 

woman, poor soul, ready to " — a choking sound and 

a hasty gulp of water smothered the rest of the sent -iK'e. 
"There must be something done for us — there must,"' he 
added, with an emphatic slap of his broad, brown, barky 
hand, that made the glasses jingle and the idle pipes clatter 
on the board. And every voice in the room echoed " there 
must," my own involuntarily swelling the chorus. 

" Ay, there must, and that full soon," said the gray- 
headed man in fustian, with an upward appealing look, as 
if through the smoky clouds of the ceiling to God himself 
for confirmation of the necessity. " But come, lads, time's 
up, so let's have our chant, and then squander." 

The company immediately stood up ; and one of the 
elders, with a deep bass voice, and to a slow, sad air, began 
a rude song, the composition probably of some provincial 
poet of his own class, the rest of the party joining occa- 
sionally in a verse that served for the burden. 

A spade ! a rake ! a hoe ! 
A pickaxe, or a bill ! 



10 THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 

A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow, 

A flailj or what ye will — 
And here 's a ready hand 

To ply the needful tool, 
And skill' d enough, by lessons rough. 

In Labor's rugged school. 

To hedge, or dig the ditch, 

To lop or fell the tree, 
To lay the swarth on the sultry field, 

Or plough the stubborn lea ; 
The harvest stack to bind, 

The wheaten rick to thatch, 
And never fear in my pouch to find 

The tinder or the match. 

To a flaming barn or farm 

My fancies never roam ; 
The fire 1 yearn to kindle and burn 

Is on the hearth of Home ; 
Where children huddle and crouch 

Through dark long winter days, 
Where starving children huddle and crouch. 

To see the cheerful rays, 
A-glowing on the haggard cheek, 

And not in the haggard's blaze ! 

To Him who sends a drought 

To parch the fields forlorn. 
The rain to flood the meadows with mud, 

The blight to blast the corn, 
To Him I leave to guide 

The bolt in its crooked path, 



THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 11 

To strike the miser's rick, and show 
The skies blood-red with wrath. 

A spade ! a rake ! a hoe ! 

A pickaxe, or a bill ! 
A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow, 

A flail, or what ye will 
The corn to thrash, or the hedge to plash -, 

The mtirket-team to drive. 
Or mend the fence by the cover side. 

And leave the game alive. 

Ay, only give me work, 

And then you need not fear 
That I shall snare his worship's hare, 

Or kill his grace's deer ; 
Break into his lordship's house, 

To steal the plate so rich ; 
Or leave the yoeman that had a purse 

To welter in a ditch. 

Wherever Nature needs, 

Wherever Labor calls, 
No job I '11 shirk of the hardest work^ 

To shun the workhouse walls ; 
Where savage laws begrudge 

The pauper babe its breath, 
And doom a wife to a widow's life, 

Before her partner's death. 

My only claim is this, 

With labor stiff and stark, 
By lawful turn my living to earn, 

Between the light and dark ; 



12 THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 

Mj daily bread, and nightly bed, 
My bacon, and drop of beer— 

But all from the hand that holds the laiid, 
And none from the overseer ! 

No parish money, or loaf, 

No pauper badges for me, 
A son of the soil, by right of toil 

Entitled to my fee. 
No alms I ask, give me my task : 

Here are the arm, the leg. 
The strength, the sinews of a Man, 

To work, and not to beg 

Still one of Adam's heirs, 

Though doom'd by chance of birth 
To dress so mean, and to eat the lean, 

Instead of the fat of the earth ; 
To make such humble meals 

As honest labor can, 
A bone and a crust, with a grace to God, 

And little thanks to man ! 

A spade ! a rake ! a hoe ! 

A pickaxe, or a bill ! 
A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow, 

A flail, or what ye will — 
Whatever the tool to ply, 

Here is a willinor drud<i-e. 
With muscle and limb, and woe to him 

Who does their pay begrudge ! 

Who every weekly score 
Docks labor's little mite, 



THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 13 

Bestows on the poor at the temple door, 

But robb'd them over ni^ht. 
The very shilling he hoped to save, 

As health and morals fail, 
Shall visit me in the New Bastile, 

The Spital, or the Gaol ! 

As the last ominous word ceased ringing, the candle-wick 
suddenly dropped into the neck of the stone bottle, and all 
■was darkness and silence. 

The vision is dispelled — the Fiction is gone — but a Fact 
and a Figure remain. 

Some time since, a strong inward impulse moved me to 
paint the destitution of an overtasked class of females, who 
work, work, work, for ^vages almost nominal. But deplor- 
able as is their condition, in the low deep there is, it seems," 
a lower still — below that gloomy gulf a darker region of 
human misery, — beneath that Purgatory a Hell — resound- 
ing with more doleful wailings and a sharper outcry — the 
voice of famishing wretches, pleading vainly for work ! 
work ! work ! — imploring as a. blessing what was laid upon 
Man as a curse — the labor that wrings SAveat from the brow^, 
and bread from the soil ! 

As a matter of conscience, that wail touches me not. As 
my works testify, I am of the working class myself, and in 
my humble sphere furnish employment for many hands, 
including paper-makers, draughtsmen, engravers, composi- 
tors, pressmen, binders, folders, and stitchers — and critics 
— all receiving a fjiir day's wages for a fair day's work. My 
gains consequently are limited — not nearly so enormous as 
have been realized upon shirts, slops, shawls, &c. — curious- 
ly illustrating how a man or woman might be " clothed with 



14 THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 

curses as with a garment." My fortune may be expressed 
without a long row of those cipijers — those O's, at once sig- 
nificant of hundreds of thousands of pounds, and as many 
ejaculations of pain and sorrow from dependent slaves. Isly 
wealth might all be hoarded, if I were miserly, in a galli- 
pot or a tin snuff-box. My guineas, placed edge to edge, 
instead of extending from the Minories to Golden Square, 
would barely reach from home to Bread Street. My riches 
would hardly allow me a roll in them, even if turned into 
the new copper mites. But then, thank God ! no reproach 
clings to my coin. No tears or blood clog the meshes, no 
hair, plucked in desperation, is knitted with the silk of pjy 
lean purse. No consumptive seam^stress can point at mc her 
bony forefinger, and say, "For thee, sewing in forma 
pauperis, I am become this Living Skeleton !'' or, hold up 
to m6 her fatal needle, as one through the eye of which the 
scriptural camel must pass ere I may hope to enter heaven. 
No withered work-woman, shaking at me her drip]nng 
suicidal locks, can cry, in a piercing voice, "For thee, and 
for six poor pence, I embroidered eighty flowers on this 
veil" — literally a veil of tears. No famishing laborer, his 
joints racked with toil, holds out to me in the palm of his 
broad hard hand seven miserable shillings, and mutters, 
'' For these, and a parish loaf, for six long days, from dawn 
till dusk, through hot and cold, through wet and dry, I 
tilled thy land !" My short sleeps are peaceful ; my 
dreams untroubled. No ghastly phantoms with reproach- 
ful faces, and silence more terrible than speech, haunt my 
quiet pillow. No victims of Slow Murder, ushered by the 
Avenging Fiends, beset my couch, and make awful appoint- 
ments with me to meet at the Divine bar on the Day of 
Judgment. No deformed human creatures — men, women, 
children, smirched black as Neo;roes, transfisured sudden- 



THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 15 

ly, as Demons of the Pit, clutch at my heels to drag me 
clown, down, down, an unfathomable shaft, into a gaping 
Ta,rtara3. And if sometimes in waking visions I see 
throngs of little faces, with features preternaturally sharp^ 
and wrinkled brows, and dull, seared orbs, — grouped with 
pitying clusters of the young-eyed cherubim, — not for me, 
thank Heaven ! did those crippled children become prema- 
turely old, and precociously evaporate, like so much steam 
pawor, " the dew of their youth." 

For me, then, that doleful cry from the Starving Unem- 
ployed has no extrinsic horror ; no peculiar pang, beyond 
that sympathetic one which must affect the species in gen- 
eral. Nevertheless, amidst the dismal chorus, one com- 
plaining voice rings distinctly on my inward ear ; one mel- 
ancholy Figure flits prominently before my mind's eye, — 
vague of feature indeed, and in form with only the common 
outlines of humanity, — but the Eidolon of a real person, a 
living breathing man, with a known name. One wliom 
I have never seen in the flesh ; never spoken with ; yet 
whose very words a still small voice is even now whispering 
to me, I know not whence, like the wind from a cloud. 

For months past, that indistinct Figure, associated, as in 
a dream, with other dim images, but all mournful — stranger 
faces, male and female, convulsed w^ith grief — huge hard 
hands, and smaller and tenderer ones, wrung in speechless 
anguish, and everlasting f^irewells — involved with obscure 
ocean waves, and momentary glimpses of outlandish scenery 
— for months past, amidst trials of my own, in the inter- 
vals of acute pain, perchance even in my delirium, and 
tliroagh the variegated tissue of my own interests and 
affairs, that sorrowful Vision has recurred to me, more or 
less vividly, with the intense sense of suffering, cruelty, and 



16 THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 

injustice, and tlie strong emotions of pity and indignation 
Avhicii originated with its birth. 

It may be, that some peculiar condition of the body, in- 
ducino- a morbid state of mind — some extreme excitability 
of the nerves, and through them of the moral sensibility, 
concurred to induce so deep an impression, to make so warm 
a sympathy attach itself to a mere Phantom, the represent- 
ative of an obscure individual, an utter stranger. The 
Reader must judge : and when the case of my unknown, 
unconscious, invisible client shall be laid before him, will 
be able to say Avhether it required any unnatural sensitive- 
ness of the system, any extraordinary softening of the 
heart or brain, to feel a strong human interest in the fate 
of Gifford White. 

In the spring of the present year this very unfortunate 
and very young man was indicted, at the Huntingdon As- 
sizes, for throwing the following letter, addressed external- 
ly and internally to the Farmers of Bluntisham, Hunts, 
into a strawyard : — 

"We are determined to set fire to the whole of this place, if 3-011 don't 
set us to work, and burn you in your beds, if there is not an alteration. 
"What do you think the young men are to do if you don't set them to work ? 
They must do something. The fact is, we cannot go on any longen We 
must commit robbery, and every thing that is contrary to your wish. 

"I am, An Enemy. 

For this offence, admitted by his plea, the prisoner, aged 
eighteen, was sentenced, by a judge since deceased, to 
Transportation for Life ! 

Far be it from me to palliate Incendiarism. Least of all, 
when so many conflagrations have recently illuminated the 
horizon ; and so near the time when the memory of that 
Arch Incendiary Guy Faux will be revived by effigies and 



THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 17 

bonfires. I am fully aware of the risk of even this appeal, 
at such a season, but, with that pleading Shade before me, 
dare the reddest reflections that may be cast on this paper- 
Only catch a real Incendiary, bring his guilt clearly 
home to him, and let him suffer the extreme penalty of the 
law. Hang him. Or, if absolutely opposed to capital 
punishment, and inclined towards the philanthropy of a 
very French philosophy, adopt the Christian ly substitute, 
recommended in the "Mysteries of Paris," and blind the 
criminal. Let fire avenge fire, and according to the pre- 
scription for Prince Arthur, with irons hot burn out both 
his eyes. Cruel and extreme as such tortures may seem, 
they would scarcely expiate one of the most dastardly and 
atrocious of human crimes, inasmuch as the perpetrator can 
neither control its extent nor calculate the results. 

The truth is, my faith stops far short of the popular be- 
lief in the prevalence of wilful and malignant Fire-raising 
— that an epidemic of that inflammatory character is so 
rife and raging as represented in the provinces. I am too 
jealous of the national character, too chary of the good 
name of my humble countrymen, and think too well of " a 
bold peasantry, our country's pride," to look on them, wil- 
lingly, as a mere pack of Samson's foxes, running from farm 
to farm with firebrands tied to their tails. If there be any 
notable increase in the number of fires, some portion of the 
excess may be fairly attributable to causes which have con- 
verted simple risks into Doubly Hazardous ; for example, 
the prevalence of cigar smoking, and especially the substi- 
tution for the old tinder-box of dangerous chemical contri- 
vances, facile of ignition, and distributed by myriads 
throughout the country. Talismans, that like the Arabian 
ones, on a slight rubbing, place a Demon at the command 
of the possessor — spells which have subjected the Fire 



18 THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 

Spirit to the instant invocation not merely of the wicked, 
but of the weak and the witless, the infant and the idiot. 
Generally, we work and play with the element more pro- | 
fusely than formerly ; witness the glowing flames, flakes, 
sparks, and cinders, that sweep across streets, over seas 
and rivers, and along railroads, from the chimneys, fun- 
nels, and furnaces of the factories, and floating and flying 
conveyances of Pluto, Vulcan and Company. Another 
cause, Spontaneous Combustion, has lately been convicted 
of the destruction of the railway station at New Cross-, 
and there is no reason to suppose that conflagrations from 
carelessness, and excessive house-warmings from inebriety, 
are less common than of old. Children will still play with 
fire ; servants, town and country, persist in snufiing long 
wicks, as well as noses, with finger and thumb ; and Agri- 
cultural Distress has not so annihilated the breed of Jolly 
Farmers but that one, here and there, is still capable of 
blowing him.self out, and putting his candle to bed. 

In the meantime, vulgar Exaggeration ascribes every 
" rapid consumption" of property, not clearly traceable to 
accident, to a malicious design. The English public, accord- 
ing to Goldsmith, are prone to panics, and he instances 
them as arming themselves with thick gloves and stout 
cudgels against certain popular bugbears in the shapes of 
mad dogs. And a fatal thing it is, proverbially, for the 
canine race to get an ill name. But a panic becomes a far 
more tragical affair when it arms one class of society against 
another ; and instead of mere brutes and curs of low de- 
gree, animals of our own species are hunted down and hung, 
or at best, all but banished to another world, by transporta- 
tion for life. It is difficult to believe that some such local 
panic did not influence the very severe sentence passed on 
Gifford White. Indeed, the existence of something of the 



_ THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 19 

kind seems intimated bj the judge himself, along with the 
extraordinary dictum that a verbal burn is worse than the 
actual cautery. Lord Abinger said : — 

" The offence was of a most atrocious character ; and it might almost be 
said, that the sending of letters threatening to burn the property of parties 
to whom they were addressed, was worse than putting the threat into ex- 
ecution ; for when a man lost his property by fire, he at least knew the 
worst of it, but he to whom such threats were made, was made to hve in 
a state of continual terror and alarm." 

Very true — and very harshly applied. The Farmers of 
Bluntisham are not of my acquaintance ; but presuming 
them to be not more nervous and timorsome than farmers 
in general, might not their terror and alarm have been 
pacified on rather easier terms ? Would not the banishment 
of the culprit for seven, or at most fourteen years, have al- 
lowed time, ample time, for the yeomanly nerves to have re- 
covered their tone ; for their affrighted hair, erect as stub- 
ble, to have subsided prone as rolled grass : nay, for the 
very name of Gifford White to have evaporated from their 
agricultural heads ? Were I a Bluntisham farmer, I could 
not eat with relish another rasher of bacon, or swallow with 
satisfaction another glass of strong ale, without protesting 
publicly against such a sacrifice to my supposed aspen-fits, 
and setting on foot a petition amongst my neighbors for a 
mitigation of that severe and satirical sentence which con- 
demned a fellow parishioner to expiate my fears by fifty- 
two years of penance — according to the scriptural calcula- 
tion of human life — in the land of the kangaroo. I could 
not sleep soundly, and know, that for my sake a son of the 
same soil had been rooted out like a common weed — sever- 
ed from kith and kin ; from hearth and home, if he had 
one; from his mother-country, hard step-mother though 



20 THE LAY OF THE LABORER. ' 

she had proved ; from a familiar land and native air, to a 
foreign one and a new climate, with strange faces around 
him, and strange stars above him, — a banished man, not for 
a little while, or for a long while, but for ever I 

But, methinks I hear a voice saj, it was necessary to 
make an example — a proceeding always accompanied by a 
certain degree of hardship, if not injustice, as regards the 
party selected to be punished in terrorem ; unless the cholcu 
be made of a criminal especially deserving such a painful pref- 
erence — as for robbery with personal violence : whereas 
there appear to be no aggravations of the offence for which 
Gifford White was sentenced to a murderer's atonement. 
On the contrary, he pleaded guilty ; a course generally ad- 
mitted as an extenuation of guilt : his youth ought to have 
been a circumstance in his favor ; and, above all, the con- 
sideration that a threat does not necessarily involve the intent, 
much less the deed. All who have been led, by word or writ- 
ing, to hope or fear, for good or evil, have had reason to know 
how far is Promise from Performance, — as far as England 
from New South Wales. Expectants never die the sooner 
for golden prospects held out to them ; and threatened folks 
are long-lived, to a proverb. And why ? Because the 
enemy who announces his designs is the least dangerous : 
as the Scotch say, " his bark is waur than his bite." The 
truth is, menaces are about the most abundant, idle, and 
empty of human vaporings; the mere puffings, blowings, 
gruntings, and growlings, from the safety-valves and waste- 
pipes of high-pressure engines. The promissory notes of 
threateners to large amounts are ludicrously associated, in- 
stead of payment, with " no effects." Who of us has not 
heard a good mother, a fond mother, a doting mother, but 
sharp tempered, promise her own dear but troublesome off- 
spring, her very pets, such savage inflictions, such break- 



THE LAY OP THE LABORER. 21 

ings of bones and knocking off plaguy little heads, as ought, 
sincerely uttered, to have consigned her to the custody o£ 
the police ? There, as my uncle Toby says, she found vent. 
Who has never known a friend, a worthy man, but a pas- 
sionate one, to indulge in such murderous threats against 
the life, body, and limbs of a tight boot-maker, or a loose 
tailor ; a blunt creditor, or a sharp critic ; as ought, if in 
earnest, to have placed him in handcuffs and a straight 
waistcoat ? But nobody mistakes these blazes of temper 
for the burnings of settled malignity — these harmless flashes 
of sheet lightning for the destructive gleam of the forked. 
It is quite possible, therefore, that the incendiary letter of 
Gifford White, though breathing Congreves and Lucifers, 
was purely theoretical ; albeit read by the judge as if in 
serious earnest, like the fulminating prospectuses of the 
Due de Normandie or Captain Warner. 

I confess to have searched, in vain, through the epistle 
for any animus of peculiar atrocity. Its address, general- 
ly to the farmers, shows it not to have been the inspiration 
of personal malice or private revenge. The threat is not a 
direct and positive one, as in resolved retaliation for some 
by-gone wrong ; but put hypothetically, and rather in the 
nature of a warning of probable consequences, dependent 
on future contingencies. The wish of the writer is obvious- 
ly not father to the menace : on the contrary, he expostu- 
lates, and appeals, methinks most touchingly, to the reason, 
the justice, even the compassion of the very parties — to be 
burnt in their beds. So clear a proof, to me, of the ab- 
sence of any serious intent, or malice prepense, that the 
only agitation from the fall of such a missive in my farm- 
yard, if I had one, would be the flutter amongst the poul- 
try. At least, theirs would be the only personal terror and 
alarm, — for, with other feelings, who coijd fail to be moved 



22 THE LAY OF TUE LABORER. 

bj a momentous question and declaration re-echoed by hun- 
dreds and thousands of able and willing, but starving la- 
borers. " What are we to do if you don't set us to work ? 
We must do something. The fact is, we cannot go on any 
longer !" 

Can the wholesale emigration, so often proposed, be only 
transportation in disguise for using such language in com- 
mon with Gifford White ? 

To me — speaking from my heart, and recording my de- 
liberate opinions on a material that, frail as it is, will long 
outlast my own flibric, — there is something deeply affecting 
in the spectacle of a young man, in the prime of health and 
vigor, offering himself, a voluntary slave, in the Labor- 
market without a purchaser--- eagerly proffering to barter 
the use of his body, the day-long exertion of his strength, 
the wear and tear of flesh and blood, bone and muscle, for 
the common necessaries of life — earnestly craving for bread 
on the penal conditions prescribed by his Creator — and in 
vain — in vain ! Well for those who enjoy each Blessing of 
earth that there are volunteers to work out the Curse ! 
Well for the drones of the social hive that there are bees 
of so industrious a turn, willing for an infinitesimal share 
of the honey to undertake the labor of its fabrication ! 

Let these considerations avail an unfortunate man, or 
rather youth, perhaps an oppressed one, subject to the 
tyranny of some such ticket system as lately required the 
interference of the Home Secretary, in behalf of the labor- 
ers of another county. 

Methinks I see him, poor Phantom ! an impertinent unit, 
of a surplus population, humbly pleading for bread, and 
offered an acre of stones— to be cleared at five farthings a 
rood. Work and wages for the asking! with the double 
alternative of tlie Union-house, or a free passage — the 



THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 23 

North- West one — to the still undiscovered coast of Bohe- 
mia ! 

Is a rash youth, so wrought on, to be eternally Ex-Isled 
from this sweet little one of our own, for only throwing a 
fow intemperate "thoughts that breathe and words that 
burn" into an anonymous letter? 

Let these things plead for a fellow-creature, goaded, per- 
haps, by the sense of wrong, as well as the physical p'angs 
of hunger, and driven by the neglect of all milder applica- 
tions to appeal to the selfish fears of men who will neither 
read the signs of the times, nor heed warnings, unless writ- 
ten, like Belshazzar's, in letters of fire ! 

One thing is certain. These are not times for visiting 
with severity the offences of the laboring poor : a class who, 
it is admitted by all parties, have borne the severest trials 
that can afflict the soul and body of man, with an exempla- 
ry fortitude, and a patience almost superhuman. A great 
fact, at which every true Englishman should exult, as at 
a National Victory, as in moral heroism it is. I, for one, 
am proud of my poor countrymen, and naturally loth to be- 
lieve that a character which so reluctantly combines with 
disaffection, and indulges so sparely in outbreak, will freely 
absorb so vile a spirit as that of incendiarism. At any rate, 
before rashly adopting such a conclusion, common justice 
and common sense bid me look elsewhere for the causes of 
any unusual number of fires in the rural districts. As a 
mere matter of patriotism, one would rather ascribe such un- 
filial outrages to an alien than to a son of the soil. We 
have lately seen a Foreign Prince, an ally, in a time of 
peace, speculating with much playful naVvetu on the best 
modes for squibbing our shipping and rocketing our harbors 
— the facility with which he could ignite the Thames and 
mull the Medway — sink the Cinque Po^-ts-^blo^^ off 



24 THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 

Beachy's head, shiver Deal into splinters, and knock the 
two Reculver steeples into one. His Highness, it is true, 
contemplated a bellicose state, ceremoniously proclaimed 
according to the usage of polite nations : but suppose some 
outlandish savage, as uncivilized as unshorn, say from Ter- 
ra del Fuego, animated with an insane hostility to England, 
a;i:l burninfj- to test his skill in Pyrotechnics — might not 
such' a barbarian be tempted to dispense with a formal dec- 
laration of war, and make a few experimental essays bow 
to introduce his treacherous combustibles into our perfidious 
towns and hamlets ? Foreign incendiaries for me, rather 
than native; and accident or Spontaneous Combustion be- 
fore either ! But if we must believe in it home-made— 
surely, in preference to the industrious laborer, suspicion 
should fall on those sturdy trampers that infest the country, 
the foremost to crave for food and money, the last to ask 
for work, and one of whom might light up a dozen parishes. 
If it be otherwise, if a class eminently loyal, patient, peace- 
able, and rational, have really become such madmen throw- 
ing about fire, it is high time, methinks, with universal Ar- 
tesian borings, to begin to scuttle our island for fear of its 
being burnt. But no — that Shadow of an Incendiary, with 
uplifted hands, and streaming repentant eyes, disavows with 
earnest gesture the foul intent ; and shadow as he is, my 
belief acquits him, and makes me echo the imaginary sigh 
with which he fades again into the foggy distance between 
me and Port Sydney. 

It is in your power. Sir James Graham ! to lay the 
Ghost that is haunting me. But that is a trifle. By a due 
intercession with the earthly Fountain of Mercy, you may 
convert a melancholy Shadow into a happier Reality — a 
righted man — a much pleasanter image to mingle in our 
waking visions, as well as in those dreams which, at Ham- 



THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 25 

let conjectures, may soothe or disturb us in our coffins. 
Think, Sir, of poor Gifford AVhite — inquire into his hard 
case, and give it your humane consideration, as that of a 
fellow-man with an immortal soul — a " possible angel"— to 
be met Jiereafter face to face. 

To me, should this appeal meet with any success, it will 
be one of the dearest deeds of my pen. I shall not repent 
a wide deviation from my usual course ; or begrudge the 
pain and trouble caused me by the providential visitings of 
an importunate Phantom. In any case, my own responsi- 
bility is at an end. I have relieved my heart, appeased my 
conscience, and absolved my soul. 

T. HOOD* 

* We copy the following note from the seventh volume of Hood's Works, 
edited hy his son : — 

[This appeal was so earaest and urgent, that, at the risk of overburdening 
the voUime with compositions which are not my father's, I venture to insert, 
whole and unabridged, the answer which Sir James Graham returned to an 
address, which, however publicly made, was a direct personal pleading of the 
strongest kind. The answer runs thus: 

" Sir James Graham presents his compliments to Mr. Hood, and begs to 9C- 
knowledge the magazine accompanying his letter of the 30th instant. 

" W/iittkaU, 31 October, ]844."1 



THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS 



" Drowned ! drowned ! " — Hamlet. 



One more unfortunate, 
Weary of breath, 
Rashly importunate, 
Gone to her death ! 

Take her up tenderly, 
Lift her with care ; 
Fashioned so slenderly, 
Young, and so fair ! 

Look at her garments 
Clinging like cerements; 
Whilst the wave constantly 
Drips from her clothing ; 
Take her up instantly, 
Loving, not loathing. — 

Touch her not scornfully ; 
Think of her mournfully, 
Gently and humanly ; 
Not of the stains of her, 
All that remains of her 
Now is pure womanly. 



28 TUE J3111UGE OF tJlGHS. 

Make no deep scrutiny 
Into her mutiny 
Kash and undutiful : 
Past all dishonor, 
Death has left on her 
Only the beautiful. 

Still, for all slips of hers. 
One of Eve's family — 
Wipe those poor lips of hers 
Oozing so clammily. 

Loop up her tresses 
Escaped from the comb, 
Her fair auburn tresses ; 
Whilst wonderment guesses 
Where was her home? 

Who was her father 7 
Who was her mother 7 
Had she a sister 7 
Had she a brother 7 
Or was there a dearer one 
Still, and a nearer one 
Yet, than all other 7 

Alas for the rarity 
Of Christian charity 
Under the sun ! 
0, it was pitiful ! 
Near a whole city full, 
Home she had none. 

Sisterly, brotherly, 
Fatherly, motherly 



THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 29 

Feelings had changed : 
Love, hy harsh evidence, 
Thrown from its eminence ; 
Even God's providence 
Seeming estranged. 

Where the lamps quiver 
So far in the river, 
With many a light 
From window and casement, 
From garret to basement. 
She stood, with amazement, 
Houseless by night. 

The bleak wind of March 
Made her tremble and shiver ,. 
But not the dark arch. 
Or the black flowing river : 
Mad from life's history. 
Glad to death's mystery, 
Swift to be hurled — 
Anywhere, anywhere 
Out of the world I 

In she plunged boldly, 
No matter how coldly 
The rough river ran, — 
Over the brink of it, 
Picture it — think of it, 
Dissolute man ! 
Lave in it, drink of it. 
Then, if you can ! 

Take her up tenderly. 
Lift her with care ; 



30 THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 

Fashioned so slenderly, 
Young, and so fair ! 

Ere her limbs frigidly 
Stiffen too rigidly, 
Decently, — kindly, — 
Smooth, and compose them 5 
And her eyes, close them, 
Staring so blindly ! 

Dreadfully staring 
Through muddy impurity, 
As when with the daring 
Last look of despairing 
Fixed on futurity. 

Perishing gloomily, 
Spurred by contumely, 
Cold inhumanity, 
Burning insanity. 
Into her rest. — 
Cross her hands humbly^ 
As if praying dumbly. 
Over her breast ! 

Owning her weakness, 
Her evil behavior, 
And leaving, with meekness, 
Her sins to her Saviour ! 



1 



THE SONG OF THE SHIRT. 



With fingers weary and worn, 

With eyelids heavy and red, 
A woman sat in unwomanly rags, 

Plying her needle and thread — 
Stitch! stitch! stitch! 
In poverty, hunger, and dirt. 

And still with a voice of dolorous pitch 
She sang the " Song of the Shirt ! " 

" Work ! work ! work ! 
While the cock is crowing aloof! 

And work — work — work, 
Till the stars shine through the roof! 
It 's ! to be a slave 

Along with the barbarous Turk, 
Where woman has never a soul to save. 

If this is Christian work ! 

' ' Work — work — work 
Till the brain begins to swim ! 

Work — work — work 
Till the eyes are heavy and dim ! 
Seam, and gusset, and band, 

Band, and gusset, and seam. 
Till over the buttons I fall asleep, 

And sew them on in a dream ! 



32 THE SON a OF TU.K SHIllT 

" 0, men, with sisters dear ! 

0, men, with mothers and wives J 
It is not linen jou 're wearing out, 

But human creatures' lives ! 
Stitch — stitch — stitch, 

lu poverty, hunger, and dirt, 
Sewing at once, with a double thread, 

A shroud as well as a shirt. 

'' But why do I talk of death ? 

That phantom of grisly bone, 
I hardly fear his terrible shape, 

It seems so like my own — 
It seems so like my own, 

Because of the fasts I keep ; 
0, God ! that bread should be so dear, 

And flesh and blood so cheap ! 

" Work — work — work ! 

My labor never flags ; 
And what are its wages 7 A bed of straW; 

A crust of bread — and rao;s. 
That shattered roof — and this naked floor—' 

A table — a broken chair — 
And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank 

For sometimes falling there ! 

' ' Work — work — work ! 

From weary chime to chime. 
Work — work — work, 

As prisoners work for crime ! 
Band, and gusset, and seam, 

Seam, and gusset, and band. 
Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumbed, 

As well as the weary hand. 



THE SONG OF THE aHlllT. 33 

' Work — work — work. 



■■J 



In the dull December light, 

And work — work — work, 
When the weather is warm and bright — 
While underneath the eaves 

The brooding swallows cling, 
As if to show me their sunny backs, 

And twit me with the spring. 

" ! but to breathe the breath 
Of the cowslip and primrose sweet — 

With the sky above my head, 
And the grass beneath my feet, 
For only one short hour 

To feel as I used to feel, 
Before I knew the woes of want, 

And the walk that costs a meal ! 

" ! but for one short hour ! 

A respite however brief 1 
No blessed leisure for love or hope, 

But only time for grief ! 
A little weeping would ease my heart, 

But in their briny bed 
My tears must stop, for every drop 

Hinders needle and thread ! " 

With fingers weary and worn, 

With eyelids heavy and red, 
A woman sat in unwomanly rags, 

Plying her needle and thread — 
Stitch ! stitch ! stitch ' 

In poverty, hunger, and dirt. 
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, — 
Would that its tone could reach the rich ! - 

She sang this " Song of the Shirt I " 



THE LADY'S DREAM. 



The lady lay in her bed, 

Her couch so warm and soft, 
But her sleep was restless and broken still ; 

For, turning often and oft 
From side to side, she muttered and moaned, 

And tossed her arms aloft. 

At last she startled up, 

And gazed on the vacant air, 
With a look of awe, as if she saw 

Some dreadful phantom there — 
And then in the pillow she buried her face 

From visions ill to bear. 

The very curtain shook. 

Her terror was so extreme ; 
And the light that fell on the broidered quht 

Kept a tremulous gleam ; 
And her voice was hollow, and shook as she cried 

"0, me ! that awful dream ! 

" That weary, weary walk, 

In the church-yard's dismal ground ! 
And those horrible things, with shady wings 

That came and flitted round, — 
Death, death, and nothing but death, 

In every sight and sound ! 



THE lady's dream. 35 

" And, ! those maidens young, 

Who wrought in that drear j room, 
With figures drooping and spectres thin, 

And cheeks without a bloom ; — 
And the voice that cried, ' For the pon\p of pride, 

We haste to an early tomb ! 

'' ' For the pomp and pleasure of pride, 

We toil like Afric slaves, 
And only to earn a home, at last, 

Where yonder cypress waves ^ ' — 
And then they pointed — I never saw 

A ground so full of graves ! 

" And still the cofiins came. 

With their sorrowful trains and slow ; 

Coffin after coffin still, 

A sad and sickening show ; 

From grief exempt, I never had dreamt 
Of such a world of woe ! 

'' Of the hearts that daily break, 

Of the tears that hourly fall. 
Of the many, many troubles of life, 

That grieve this earthly ball — 
Disease, and Hunger, and Pain, and Want, 

But now I dreamt of them all ! 

' For the blind and the cripple were there. 

And the babe that pined for bread. 
And th 3 houseless man, and the widow poor 

Who begged — to bury the dead ; 
The naked, alas ! that I might have clad, 

The famished I misjht have fed ! 



36 THE lady's DIU^AM. 

" The sorrow I might have soothed, 

And the unregarded tears : 
For many a thronging shape was theie, 

From long-forgotten years, — 
Ay, even the poor rejected Moor. 

Who raised my childish fears ! 

' Each pleading look, that long ago 
I scanned with a heedless eye, 

Each face was gazing as plainly there 
As Avhen I passed it by : 

Woe, woe for me if the past should be 
^ Thus present when I die ! 

^' No need of sulphureous lake, 

No need of fiery coal, 
But only that crowd of human kind 

Who wanted pity and dole — 
In everlasting retrospect — 

Will wring my sinful soul ! 

'• Alas ! I have walked through life 

Too heedless where I trod ; 
Nay, helping to trample my fellow- worm, 

And fill the burial sod — 
Forgetting that even the sparrow falls 

Not unmarked of God ! 

'' I drank the richest draughts : 
And ate whatever is good — 

Fish, and flesh, and fowl, and fruit, 
Supplied my hungry mood ; 

But I never remembered the wretched ones 
That starve for want of food ! 



THE lady's dream. 37 

'' I dressed as the noble dress, 

In cloth of silver and gold, 
With silk, and satin, and costly furs. 

In many an ample fold ; 
But I never remembered the naked limbs 

That froze with winter's cold. 

" The Avounds I might have healed ! 

The human sorrow and smart ! 
And jet it never was in my soul 

To play so ill a part : 
But evil is wrought by want of thought 

As well as want of heart ! " 

She clasped her fervent hands. 

And the tears began to stream : 
Large, and bitter, and fast they fell, 

Remorse was so extreme . 
And yet, 0, yet, that many a dame 

Would dream the Lady's Dream I 



THE WORKHOUSE CLOCK. 



AN ALLEGORY. 



There 's a murmur in the air. 
A noise in every street — 
The murmur of many tongues, 
The noise of numerous feet — 
While round the workhouse door 
The laboring classes flock, 
For why 7 — the overseer of the poor 
Is setting the workhouse clock. 

Who does not hear the tramp 
Of thousands speeding along 
Of either sex and various stamp, 
Sickly, crippled, or strong, 
Walking, limping, creeping 
From court, and alley, and lane. 
But all in one direction sweeping, 
Like rivers that seek the main 1 
Who does not see them sally 
From mill, and garret, and room, 
In lane, and court, and alley, 
From homes in poverty's lowest valley, 
Furnished with shuttle and loom — 
Poor slaves of Civilization's galley — 
And in the road and footways rally. 
As if for the day of doom? 



THE WORKHOUSE CLOCK. 39 

Some, of hardly human form, 
Stunted, crooked, and crippled by tfjil : 
Dingy with smoke and dust and oil, 
And smirched besides with vicious soil. 
Clustering, mustering, all in a swarm. 
Father, mother, and careful child. 
Looking as if it had never smiled — 
The seamstress, lean, and weary, and wanj 
With only the ghosts of garments on — 
The weaver, her sallow neighbor, 
The grim and sooty artisan ; 
Every soul — child, woman, or man, 
Who lives — or dies — by labor. 

Stirred by an overwhelming zeal, 

And social impulse, a terrible throng ! 

Leaving shuttle, and needle, and wheel, 

Furnace, and grindstone, spindle, and reel, 

Thread, and yarn, and iron, and steel — 

Yea, rest and the yet untasted meal — - 

Gushing, rushing, crushing along, 

A very torrent of Man ! 

Urged by the sighs of sori'ow and wrong 

Grown at last to a hurricane strong. 

Stop its course who can ! 

Stop who can its onward course 

And irresistible moral force : 

O ! vain and idle dream ! 

For surely as men are all akin, 

Whether of fair or sable skin, 

According to Nature's scheme. 

That human movement contains within 

A blood-power stronger than steam. 



40 THE WORKHOUSE CLOCK. 

Onward, onward, with hastj feet, 
They swarm — and westward still — 
Masses born to drink and eat. 
But starving amidst Whitechapel's meat, 
And famishing down Cornhill ! 
Through the Poultry — but still unfed — 
Christian cnarity, hang your head ! 
Hungry — passing the Street of Bread ; 
Thirsty — the Street of Milk ; 
Ragged — beside the Ludgate mart, 
So gorgeous, through mechanic art, 
With cotton, and wool, and silk ! 

At last, before that door 

That bears so many a knock 

Ere ever it opens to sick or poor, v 

Like sheep they huddle and flock — 

And would that all the good and wise 

Could see the million of hollow eyes, 

With a gleam derived from hope and the skies, 

Upturned to the workhouse clock ! 

O ! that the parish powers, 
Who regulate labor's hours, 
The daily amount of human trial. 
Weariness, pain, and self-denial, 
^ Would turn from the artificial dial 
That striketh ten or eleven. 
And go, for once, by that older one 
That stands in the light of Nature's sun, 
And takes its time from Heaven ! 



HERO AND LEANDER. 



TO S T. COLERIDGE. 

It is not with a hope my feeble praise V 

Can add one moment's honor to thy own, 

That with th j mighty name I grace these lays : 

I seek to glorify myself alone : 

For that some precious favor thou hast shown 

To my endeavor in a bygone time, 

And by this token I would have it known 

Thou art my friend, and friendly to my rhyme! 

It is my dear ambition now to climb 

Still higher in thy thought, — if my bold pen 

May thrust on contemplations more sublime. — 

But I am thirsty for thy praise, for when 

We gain applauses from the great in name, 

We seem to be partakers of their fame. 



HERO AND LEANDER. 



Bards of old ! what sorrows have ye sung 
And traLHC stories, chronicled in stone, — 
Sad Philomel restored her ravished tongue, 
And transformed Niobe in dumbness shown ; 
Sweet Sappho on her love forever calls, 
And Hero on the drowned Leander falls ! 

Was it that spectacles of sadder plights 
Should make our blisses rehsh the more high 1 
Then all fair dames, and maidens, and true knights, 
Whose flourished fortunes prosper in Love's eje. 
Weep here, unto a tale of ancient grief, 
Traced from the course of an old bas-relief. 

There stands Abydos ! — here is Sestos' steep, 
Hard by the gusty margin of the sea. 
Where sprinkling waves continually do leap ; 
And that is where those famous lovers be, 
A builded gloom shot up into the gray, 
As if the first tall watch-tower of the day. 

Lo ! how the lark soars upward and is gone ! 
Turning a spirit as he nears the sky. 
His voice is heard, though body there is none, 
And rain-like music scatters from on high ; 
But Love would follow with a falcon spite. 
To pluck the minstrnl from his dewy height. 



44 HERO AND LEANDER. 

For Love hath framed a dittj of regrets, 
Tuned to the hollow sobbings on the shore, 
A vexing sense, that with like music frets. 
And chimes this dismal burthen o'er and o'er, 
Saying, Leander's joys are past and spent, 
Like stars extinguished in the firmament. 

For ere the golden crevices of morn 

Let in those regal luxuries of light. 

Which all the variable east adorn, 

And hang rich fringes on the skirts of night, 

Leander, weaning from sweet Hero's side, 

Must leave a widow where he found a bride. 

Hark ! how the billows beat upon the sand ! 
Like pawing steeds impatient of delay ; 
Meanwhile their rider, lingering on the land, 
Dallies with Love, and holds farewell at bay 
A too short span. — How tedious slow is grief ! 
But parting renders time both sad and brief. 

^' Alas ! (he sighed) that this first glimpsing light, 

Which makes the wide world tenderly appear. 

Should be the burning signal for my flight, 

From all the world's best image, which is here; 

Whose very shadow, in my fond compare, 1 

Shines far more bright than Beauty's self elsewhere/ } 

Their cheeks are white as blossoms of the dark. 
Whose leaves close up and show the outward pale, 
And those fair mirrors where their joys did spark. 
All dim and tarnished with a di^eary veil. 
No more to kindle till the night's return. 
Like stars replenished at Joy's golden urn. 



HERO AND LEANDEll. 

Even thus they creep into the spectral gray, 
That cramps the landscape in its narrow brim, 
As when two shadows by old Lethe stray, 
He clasping her and she entwining him ; 
Like trees wind-parted that embrace anon, 
True love so often goes before 'tis gone. 

For what rich merchant but will pause in fear, 
To trust his wealth to the unsafe abyss 7 
So Hero dotes upon her treasure here, 
And sums the loss with many an anxious kiss, 
Whilst her fond eyes grow dizzy in her head, 
Fear aggravating fqar with shows of dread. 

She thinks how many have been sunk and drowned. 
And spies their snow-white bones below the deep. 
Then calls huge congregated monsters round. 
And plants a rock wherever he would leap ; 
Anon she dwells on a fantastic dream, 
Which she interprets of that fatal stream. 

Saying, " That honeyed fly I saw was thee. 
Which lighted on a water-lily's cup. 
When, lo ! the flower, enamored of my bee, 
Closed on him suddenly and locked him up, 
And he was smothered in her drenching dew ; 
Therefore this day thy drowning I shall rue.'' 

But next, remembering her virgin flime, 

She clips him in her arms and bids him go. 

But seeing him break loose repents her shame, 

And plucks him back upon her bosom's snow ; 

And tears unfix her iced resolve again, . 

As steadfast frosts are thawed by showers of rain. 



4(3 UERO AND LEANDER. 

for a type of parting ! — Love to love 
Is like the fond attraction of two spheres, 
Which needs a godlike effort to remove, 
And then sink down their sunny atmospheres 
III rain and darkness on each ruined heart, 
Nor yet their melodies will sound apart. 

So brave Leander sunders from his bride ; 

The wrenching pang disparts his soul in twain ; 

Half stays with her, half goes towards the tide, — 

And life must ache until they join again. 

Now wouldst thou know the wideness of the wound 

Mete every step he takes upon the ground. 

And for the agony and bosom-throe, 

Let it be measured by the wide vast air. 

For that is infinite, and so is woe, 

Since parted lovers breathe it everywhere. 

Look how it heaves Leander' s laboring chest, 

Panting, at poise, upon a rocky crest ! 

From which he leaps into the scooping brine, 
That shocks his bosom with a double chill ; 
Because, all hours, till the slow sun's decline, 
That cold divorcer Avill betwixt them still ; 
Wherefore he likens it to Styx' foul tide. 
Where life grows death upon the other side. 

Then sadly he confronts his two-fold toil 
Against rude waves and an unwilling mind. 
Wishing, alas ! with the stout rower's toil. 
That like a rower he might gaze behind, 
And watch that lonely statue he hath left 
On her bleak summit, weeping and bereft ! 



HERO AND LEANDER. 47 

Yet turning oft, he sees her troubled locks 
Pursue him still the furthest that thej may ; 
Her marble arms tliat overstretch the rocks, 
And her pale passioned hands tliat seem to pray 
In dumb petition to the gods above : 
Love prays devoutly when it prays for love ! 

Then with deep sighs he blows away the wave, 
That hangs superfluous tears upon his cheek, 
And bans his labor like a hopeless slave, 
That, chained in hostile galley, faint and weak, 
Plies on despairing through the restless foam, 
Thoughtful of his lost love, and far-off home. 

The drowsy mist before him chill and dank, 

Like a dull lethargy o'erleans the sea, 

When he rows on against the utter blank. 

Steering as if to dim eternity, — 

Like Love's frail ghost departing with the dawn ; 

A failing shadow in the tAvilight drawn. 

And soon is gone, — or nothing but a faint 
And failing image in the eye of thought ; 
That mocks his model Avith an after-pamt, 
And stains an atom like the shape she sought ; 
Then with her earnest vows she hopc-s to fee 
The old and hoary majesty of sea. 

" King of waves, and brother of high Jove, 
Preserve my sumless venture there afloat ; 
A woman's heart, and its whole wealth of love, 
Are all embarked upon that little boat ; 
Nay, but two loves, two lives, a double fate, 
A perilous voyage for so dear a freight. 



48 HERO AND LEANDEK. 

" It .v.uj|.*t)us mariners be stained with crimej 
Shake noi in awful rage thy hoary locks . 
Lay by thy storms until another time. 
Lest my fiail bark be dashed against the rocks : 
Or rather Hmoothe thy deeps that he may fly 
Like Love himself, upon a seeming sky ! 

'' Let all thy herded monsters sleep beneath, 

Nor gore him with crooked tusks, or wreathed liorns ; 

Let no fierce sharks destroy him with their teeth. 

Nor spine-fish wound him with their venomed thorns 

But if he faint, and timely succor lack, 

Let ruthful dolphins rest him on their back. 

" Let no false dimpling whirlpools suck him in, 
Nor slimy quicksands smother his sweet breath ; 
Let no jagged corals tear his tender skin, 
Nor mountain billows bury him in death ; " — 
And with tha^ thought forestalling her own fears, 
She drowned his painted image in her tears. 

By this, the climbing sun, with rest repaired 
Looked through the gold embrasures of the sky, 
And asked the drowsy world how she had fared ; — 
The drowsy world shone brightened in reply ; 
And smiling off her fogs, his slanting beam 
Spied young Leander in the middle stream. 

His face was pallid, but the hectic morn 
Had hung a lying crimson on his cheeks. 
And slanderous sparkles in his eyes forlorn ; 
So death lies ambushed in consumptive streaks ; 
But inward grief was writhing o'er its task, 
As heart-sick jesters weep behind the mask. 



HERO AND LEANDER. 49 

He thought of Hero and the lost delight, 
Her last embracings, and the space between; 
He thought of Hero and the future night, 
Her speechless rapture and enamored mien, 
When, lo 1 before him, scarce two galleys' space, 
His thoughts confronted with another face ! 

Her aspect 's like a moon divinely fair. 
But makes the midnight darker that it lies on ; 
'T is so beclouded with her coal-black hair 
That densely skirts her luminous horizon, 
Making her doubly fair, thus darkly set, 
As marble lies advantaged upon jet. 

She 's all too bright, too argent, and too pale, 

To be a woman ; — but a woman's double, 

Reflected on the wave so faint and frail, 

She tops the billows like an air-blown bubble ; 

Or dim creation of a morning dream, 

Fair as the w^ave-bleached lily of the stream. 

The very rumor strikes his seeing dead : 

Great beauty like great fear first stuns the sense : 

He knows not if her lips be blue or red, 

Nor of her eyes can give true evidence : 

Like murder's witness swooning in the court, 

His sight falls senseless by its own report. 

Anon resuming, it declares her eyes 

Are tinct with azure, like two crystal wells 

That drink the blue complexion of the skies. 

Or pearls out-peeping from their silvery shells : 

Her pohshed brow, it is an ample plain. 

To lodge vast contemplations of the main. 

4 



50 HERO AND LEANDER. 

Her lips might corals seem, but corals near, 
Stray through her hair like blossoms on a bower ; 
And o'er the weaker red still domineer, 
And make it pale by tribute to more power ; 
Her rounded cheeks are of still paler hue, 
Touched by the bloom of water, tender blue. 

Thus he beholds her rocking on the water, 
Under the glossy umbrage of her hair, 
Like pearly Amphitrite's fairest daughter, 
Naiad, or Nereid, or Siren fair, 
Mislodging music in her pitiless breast, 
A nightingale within a falcon's nest. 

They say there be such maidens in the deep, 
Charming poor mariners, that all too near 
By mortal lullabies fall dead asleep, 
As drowsy men are poisoned through the ear ; 
Therefore Leander's fears begin to urge, 
This snowy swan is come to sing his dirge. 

At which he falls into a deadly chill. 
And strains his eyes upon her lips apart ; 
Fearing each breath to feel that prelude shrill. 
Pierce through his marrow, like a breath-blown dart 
Shot sudden from an Indian's hollow cane, 
With mortal venom fraught, and fiery pain. 

Here, then, poor wretch, how he begins to crowd 
A thousand thoughts within a pulse's space; 
There seemed so brief a pause of life allowed, 
His mind stretched universal, to embrace 
The whole wide world, in an extreme farewell, - 
A moment's musing — but an age to tell. 



II 



HERO AND LEANDER 5] 

For there stood Hero, widowed at a glance, 
The foreseen sum of many a tedious fact, 
Pale cheeks, dim eyes, and withered countenance, 
A wasted ruin that no wasting lacked ; 
Time's tragic consequents ere time began, 
A world of sorrow in a tear-drop's span. 

A moment's thinking is an hour in words, — 
An hour of words is little for some woes ; 
Too little breathino; a lono; life affords, 
For love to paint itself bj perfect shows ; 
Then let his love and grief unwronged lie dumb 
Whilst Fear, and that it fears, together come. 

As when the crew, hard by some jutty cape, 
Struck pale and panicked by the billows' roar, 
Lay by all timely measures of ei^cape. 
And let their bark 2:0 drivino- on. the shore ; 
So frayed Leander, diifting to his wreck, 
Gazing on Scylla, falls upon her neck. 

For he hath all forgot the swimmer's art, 
The rower's cunning, and the pilot's skill, 
Letting his arms fall down in languid part. 
Swayed by the waves, and nothing by his will, 
Till soon he jars against that glossy skin. 
Solid like glass, though seemingly as thin. 

Lo ! how she startles at the warning shock 
And straightway girds him to her radiant breast, 
More like his safe smooth harbor than his rock ; 
Poor wretch, he is so faint and toil-opprest. 
He cannot loose him from his grappling foe. 
Whether for love or hate, she lets not go. 



52 HERO AND LEANDER. 

His eyes are blinded with the sleetj brine, 

His ears are deafened with the wildering noise ; 

He asks the purpose of her fell design, 

But foamy waves choke up his struggling voice ; 

Under the ponderous sea his body dips, 

And Hero's name dies bubbling on his lips. 

Look how a man is lowered to his grave ; 
A yearning hollow in the green earth's lap ; 
So he is sunk into the yawning wave. 
The plunging sea fills up the watery gap ; 
Anon he is all gone, and nothing seen, 
But likeness of green turf and hillocks green. 

And where he swam the constant sun lies sleeping; 
Over the verdant plain that makes his bed ; 
And all the noisy waves go freshly leaping, 
Like gamesome boys over the church-yard dead ; 
The light in vain keeps looking for his face, 
Now screaming sea-fowl settle in his place. 

Yet weep and watch for him, though all in vain ! 
Ye moaning billows, seek him as ye wander ! 
Ye gazing sunbeams, look for him again ! 
Ye winds, grow hoarse with asking for Leander ! 
Ye did but spare him for more cruel rape. 
Sea-storm and ruin in a female shape ! 

She says 'tis love hath bribed her to this deed, 
The glancing of his eyes did so bewitch her. 
bootless theft ! unprofitable meed ! 
Love's treasury is sacked, but she no richer ; 
The sparkles of his eyes are cold and dead, 
And all his golden looks are turned to lead ! 



1 



HERO AND LEANDER. 6? 

She holds the casket, but her simple hand 
Ilath spilled its dearest jewel by the way ; 
She hath life's empty garment at command. 
But her own death lies covert in the prey ; 
As if a thief should steal a tainted vest. 
Some dead man's spoil, and sicken of his pest. 

Now she compels him to her deeps below. 

Hiding his face beneath her plenteous hair. 

Which jealously she shakes all round her brow, 

For dread of envy, though no eyes are there 

But seals', and all brute tenants of the deep. 

Which heedless through the wave their journeys keep 

Down and still downward through the dusky green 

She bore him, murmuring with joyous haste 

In too rash ignorance, as he had been 

Born to the texture of that watery waste ; 

That which she breathed and sighed, the emerald wave, 

How could her pleasant home become his grave ! 

Down and still downward through the dusky green 
She ])ore her treasure, with a face too nigh 
To mark how life was altered in its mien. 
Or how the light grew torpid in his eye. 
Or how his pearly breath, unprisoned there, 
Elew up to join the universal air. 

She could not miss the throbbings of his heart, 
Whilst her own pulse so wantoned in its joy ; 
Sho could not guess he struggled to depart. 
And when he strove no more, the hapless boy ! 
She read his mortal stillness for content. 
Feeling no fear where only love was meant. 



54 HERO AND LEANDER. 

Soon she alights upon her ocean-floor, 

And straight unyokes her arms from her fair prize . 

Then on his lovely face begins to pore, 

As if to glut her soul ; — her hungry eyes 

Have grown so jealous of her arms' delight ; 

It seems, she hath no other sense but sight. 

But, 0, sad marvel ! 0, most bitter strange ! 
What dismal magic makes his cheek so pale 1 
Why will he not embrace, — why not exchange 
Her kindly kisses ; — wherefore not exhale 
Some odorous message from life's ruby gates, 
Where she his first sweet embassy awaits ? 

Her eyes, poor watchers, fixed upon his looks. 
Are grappled with a wonder near to grief. 
As one, who pores on undeciphered books. 
Strains vain surmise, and dodges with belief; 
So she keeps gazing with a mazy thought. 
Framing a thousand doubts that end in naught. 

Too stern inscription for a page so young, 
Tlie dark translation of his look was death ! 
But death was written in an alien tongue. 
And learning was not by to give it breath ; 
So one deep woe sleeps buried in its seal, 
Whieh Time, untimely, hasteth to reveal. 

Meanwhile she sits unconscious of her hap, 
Nursing Death's marble effigy, which there 
With heavy head lies pillowed in her lap, 
And elbows all unhinged ; — his sleeking hair 
Creeps o'er her knees, and settles where his hand 
Leans with lax fingers crooked, against the sand ; 



HERO AND LEANDER. 55 

And there lies spread in many an oozy trail, 
Like glossy weeds hung from a chalky base, 
That shows no whiter than his brow is pale ; 
So soon the wintry death had bleached his face 
Into cold marble, — with blue chilly shades, 
Showing wherein, the freezy blood pervades. 

And o'er his steadfast cheek a furrowed pain 
Hath set, and stiffened like a storm in ice, 
ShoAving by drooping lines the deadly strain 
Of mortal anguish ; — yet you might gaze twice 
Ere Death it seemed, and not his cousin, Sleep, 
That through those creviced lids did underpeep. 

But all that tender bloom about his eyes, 

Is Death's own violets, which his utmost rite 

It is to scatter when the red rose dies ; 

For blue is chilly, and akin to white : 

Also he leaves some tinges on his lips. 

Which he hath kissed with such cold frosty nips. 

" Surely," quoth she, ''he sleeps, the senseless thing, 
Oppressed and faint with toiling in the stream ! " 
Therefore she will not mar his rest, but sing 
So low, her tune shall mingle with his dream ; 
Meanwhile, her lily fingers tasks to twine 
His uncrispt locks uncurling in the brine. 

" lovely boy ! " — thus she attuned her voice,— 
'•'Welcome, thrice welcome, to a sea-maid's home. 
My love-mate thou shalt be, and true heart's choice ; 
How have I longed such a twin-self should come,— 
A lonely thing, till this sweet chance befell, 
My heart kept sighing like a hollow shell. 



5(3 HERO AND LEANDER. 

' ' Here thou slialt live beneath this secret dome, 

An ocean-bower ; defended by the shade 

Of quiet waters, a cool emerald gloom 

To lap thee all about. Nay, be not frayed 

Those are but shady fishes that sail by 

Like antic clouds across my liquid sky ! 



" Look how the sunbeam burns upon their scales, 
And shows rich glimpses of their Tyrian skins ; 
They flash small lightnings from their vigorous tails, 
And winking stars are kindled at their fins ; 
These shall divert thee in thy weariest mood, 
And seek thy hand for gamesomeness and food. 

" Lo ! those green pretty leaves with tassel bells. 
My flowerets those, that never pine for drowtli ; 
Myself did plant them in the dappled shells. 
That drink the wave with such a rosy mouth, — 
Pearls wouldst thou have beside 7 crystals to shine 1 
I had such treasures once, — now they are thine. 

" Now, lay thine ear against this golden sand, 
And thou shalt hear the music of the sea. 
Those hollow tunes it plays against the land, — 
Is 't not a rich and wondrous melody '? 
I have lain hours, and fancied in its tone 
I heard the languages of ages gone ! 

" I too can sing when it shall please thy choice, 
And breathe soft tunes through a melodious shell, 
Though heretofore I have but set my voice 
To some long sighs, grief harmonized, to tell 
Ho^- desolate I fared ; — but this sweet chano;e 
Will add new notes of gladness to my range ! 



I 



HERO AND LEANDER. 57 

'' Or bid me speak, and I will tell thee tales, 
Which I have framed out of the noise of waves ; 
Ere now, I have communed with senseless gales. 
And held vain colloLjuies with barren caves ; 
But I could talk to thee whole days and days, 
Only to word my love a thousand ways. 

"But if thy lips will bless me with their speech, 
Then ope, sweet ora^cles ! and I '11 be mute ; 
I was born ignorant for thee to teach, 
Nay, all love's lore to thy dear looks impute ; 
Then ope thine eyes, fair teachers, by whose light 
I saw to give away my heart aright ! " 

But cold and deaf the sullen creature lies, 
Over her knees, and with concealing clay 
Like hoarding Avarice locks up his eyes. 
And leaves her world impoverished of day ; 
Then at his cruel lips she bends to plead, 
But there the door is closed against her need. 

Surely he sleeps, — so her false wits infer ! 
Alas ! poor sluggard, ne'er to wake again ! 
Surely he sleeps, yet without any stir 
That might denote a vision in his brain ; 
Or if he does not sleep, he feigns too long, 
Twice she hath reached the ending of her song. 

Therefore, 't is time she tells him to uncover 
Those radiant jesters, and disperse her fears, 
Whereby her April face is shaded over. 
Like rainy clouds just ripe for showering tears ; 
Nay, if he will not wake, so poor she gets. 
Herself must rob those locked up cabinets. 



58 HERO AND LEANDER. 

With that she stoops above his brow, and bids 
Her busy hands forsake his tangled hair, 
And tenderly lift up those coifer-lids, 
That she may gaze upon the jewels there, 
Like babes that pluck an early bud apart, 
To know the dainty color of its heart. 

Now, picture one, soft creeping to a bed. 
Who slowly parts the fringe-hung canopies. 
And then starts back to find the sleeper dead ; 
So she looks in on his uncovered eyes, 
And seeing all within so drear and dark. 
Her own bright soul dies in her like a spark. 

Backward she falls, like a pale prophetess, 
Under the swoon of holy divination : 
And what had all surpassed her simple guess, 
She now resolves in this dark revelation ; 
Death's very mystery, — oblivious death ; — 
Long sleep, — deep night, and an entranced breath. 

Yet life, though wounded sore, not wholly slain, 
Merely obscured, and not extinguished, lies ; 
Her breath that stood at ebb, soon flows again, 
Heaving her hollow breast with heavy sighs, 
And light comes in and kmdles up the gloom, ^ 

To light her spirit from its transient tomb. *S 

! 

Then like the sun, awakened at new dawn, 

With pale bewildered face she peers about, 

And spies blurred images obscurely drawn, ^■ 

Uncertain shadows in a haze of doubt ; t 

But her true grief grows shapely by degrees^ I 

A perished creature lying on her knees. :. 



HERO AND LEANDER. 59 

And now she knows how that old Murther preys, 
Whose quarry on her lap lies newly slain : 
How he roams all abroad and grimly slays. 
Like a lean ti2;er in Love's own domain ; 
Parting fond mates, — and oft in flowery lawns 
[Pereaves mild mothers of their milky fawns. 

0, too dear knowledge ! 0, pernicious earning ! 
Foul curse engraven upon beauty's page ! 
Even now the sorrow of that deadly learning 
Ploughs up her brow, like an untimely age, 
And on her cheek stamps verdict of death's truth 
By canker blights upon the bud of youth ! 

For as unwholesome winds decay the leaf, 
So her cheeks' rose is perished by her sighs, 
And withers in the sickly breath of grief; 
Whilst unacquainted rheum bedims her eyes, 
Tears, virgin tears, the first that ever leapt 
From tho»e young lids, now plentifully wept. 

Whence being shed, the liquid crystalline 
Drops straightway down, refusing to partake 
Li gross admixture with the baser brine. 
But shrinks and hardens into pearls opaque, 
Hereafter to be worn on arms and ears ; 
So one maid's trophy is another's tears ! 

foul Arch- Shadow, thou old cloud of Night, 
(Thus in her frenzy she began to wail,) 
Thou blank oblivion — blotter out of light, 
Life's ruthless murderer, and dear Love's bale ^ 
Why hast thou left thy havoc incomplete. 
Leaving me here, and slaying the more sweet '^ 



60 HERO AND LEANDER. 

Lo ! what a lovely ruin tliou hast made ! 
Alas ! alas ! thou hast no ejes to sec, 
And blindly slew'st him in misguided shade. 
Would I had lent my doting sense to thee ! 
But now I turn to thee, a willing mark, 
Thine arrows miss me in the aimless dark ! 

^' 0. doubly cruel ! — twice misdoing spite, 

But I will guide thee with my helping eyes, 

Or walk the wide world through, devoid of sight, 

Yet thou shalt know me by my many sighs. 

Nay, then thou shouldst have spared my rose, false Death„ 

And known Love's flower by smelling his sweet breath ; 

'' Or, when thy furious rage was round him dealing, 
Love should have grown from touching of his skin ; 
But like cold marble thou art all unfeelins;, 
And hast no ruddy springs of warmth witliin, 
And being but a shape of freezing bone, 
Thy touching only turned my love to stone ! 

" And here, alas ! he lies across m.y knees, 
With cheeks still colder than the stilly wave. 
The light beneath his eyelids seems to freeze ; 
Here then, since Love is dead and lacks a grave, 
0, come and dig it in my sad heart's core — 
That wound will brino; a balsam for its sore ! 



'•' For art thou not a sleep where sense of ill 
Lies stingless, like a sense benumbed with cold, 
Healing all hurts only with sleep's good- will ? 
Bo shall I slumber, and perchance behold 
My living love in dreams,— 0, happy night, 
That lets me company his banished spright ! 



HERO AND LEANDER. 61 

''0, poppy death ! — sweet poisoner of sleep ; 
Where shall I seek for thee, oblivious drug, 
That I may steep thee in my drink, and creep 
Out of life's coil '? Look, Idol ! how I hug 
Thy dainty image in this strict embrace, 
And kiss this clay-cold model of thy face ! 

'' Put out, put out these sun-consuming lamps ! 
I do but read my sorrows by their shine ; 
0, come and quench them with thy oozy damps, 
And let. my darkness intermix with thine ; 
Since love is blinded, wherefore should I see 7 
Now love is death, — death will be love to me ! 

" Away, away, this vain complaining breath, 
It does but stir the troubles that I weep ; 
Let it be hushed and quieted, sweet Death ; 
The wind must settle ere the wave can sleep, — 
Since love is silent I would fain be mute ; 
0, Death, be gracious to my dying suit ! " 

Thus far she pleads, but pleading naught avails her, 
For Death, her sullen burthen, deigns no heed ; 
Then with dumb craving arms, since darkness fliils her, 
She prays to heaven's fair light, as if her need 
Inspired her there were gods to pity pain. 
Or end it, — but she lifts her arms in vain ! 

Poor gilded Grief ! the subtle light by this 
With mazy gold creeps through her watery mine, 
And, diving downward through the green abyss, 
Lights up her palace with an amber shine ; 
There, falling on her arms, — the crystal skin 
Reveals the rubv tide that fares within. 



62 HERO AXD LEANDER, 

Look how the fulsome beam would hang a glory 
On her dark hair, but the dark hairs repel it ; 
Look how the perjured glow suborns a story 
On her pale lips, but lips refuse to tell it ; 
Grief will not swerve from grief, however told 
On coral lips, or charactered in gold ; 

Or else, thou maid ! safe anchored on Love's neck, 
Listing the hapless doom of young Leander, 
Thou wouldst not shed a tear for that old wreck, 
Sitting secure where no wild surges wander : 
Whereas the woe moves on with tragic pace, 
And shows its sad reflection in thy face. 

Thus having travelled on, and tracked the tale, 
Like the due course of an old bas-relief. 
Where Tragedy pursues her progress pale, 
Brood here a while upon that sea-maid's grief, 
And take a deeper imprint from the frieze 
Of that young Fate, with Death upon her knees. 

Then whilst the melancholy Muse withal 
Resumes her music in a sadder tone, 
Meanwhile the sunbeam strikes upon the wall, 
Conceive that lovely siren to live on, 
Even as Hope whispered, the Promethean light 
Would kindle up the dead Leander' s spright. 

" 'T is light," she says, '' that feeds the glittering stars, 
And those were stars set in his heavenly brow ; 
But this salt cloud, this cold sea-vapor, mars 
Their radiant breathing, and obscures them now ; 
Therefore I '11 lay him in the clear blue air. 
And see how these dull orbs will kindle there." 



HEKO AND LEANDER. 63 

Bwiftlj as dolphins glide, or swifter yet, 
With dead Leander in her fond arms' fold, 
She cleaves the meshes of that radiant net 
The sun hath t^yined above of liquid gold, 
Nor slacks till on the margin of the land 
She lays his body on the glowing sand. 

There, like a pearly waif, just past the reach 
Of foamy billows he lies cast. Just then, 
Some listless fishers, straying down the beach. 
Spy out this wonder. Thence the curious men, 
Low crouching, creep into a thicket brake. 
And watch her doings till their rude hearts ache. 

First she begins to chafe him till she faints. 
Then falls upon his mouth w^ith kisses many, 
And sometimes pauses m her own complaints 
To list his breathing, but there is not any, — 
Then looks into his eyes where no light dwells • 
Light makes no pictures in such muddy wells. 

The hot sun parches his discovered eyes, 

The hot sun beats on his discolored limbs. 

The sand is oozy whereapon he lies. 

Soiling his fairness ; — then away she swims. 

Meaning to gather him a daintier bed. 

Plucking the cool fresh weeds, brown, green, and red. 

But, simple-witted thief, while she dives under, 
Another robs her of her amorous theft ; 
The ambushed fishermen creep forth to plunder, 
And steal the unwatched treasure she has left ; 
Only his void impression dints the sands : 
Leander is purloined by stealthy hands ! 



ti4 HERO AND LEANDER. 

Lo ! how she shudders off the beaded wave ! 
Like Grief all over tears, and senseless falls, 
His void imprint seems hollowed for her grave ; 
Then, rising on her knees, looks round and calls 
On Hero ! Hero ! — having learned this name 
Of his last breath, she calls him by the same. 

Then with her frantic hands she rends her hairs, 
And casts them forth, sad keepsakes, to the wind, 
As if in plucking those she plucked her cares ; 
But grief lies deeper, and remains behind 
Like a barbed arrow, rankling in her brain, 
Turning her very thoughts to throbs of pain. 

Anon her tangled locks are left alone, 
And down upon the sand she meekly sits, 
Hard by the foam, as humble as a stone. 
Like an enchanted maid beside her w^its. 
That ponders with a look serene and tragic, 
Stunned by the mighty mystery of magic. 

Or think of Ariadne's utter trance, 

Crazed by the flight of that disloyal traitor, 

Who left her gazing on the green expanse 

That swallowed up his track, — yet this would mate her, 

Even in the cloudy summit of her woe, 

When o'er the far sea-brim she saw him no. 

For even so she bows, and bends her gaze 

O'er the eternal waste, as if to sum 

Its waves by weary thousands all her days. 

Dismally doom^ed ! meanwhile the billows come, 

And coldly dabble with her quiet feet, 

Like any bleaching stones they wont to greet. 



HEKO AND LEANDER. 65 

And thence into her lap have boldly sprung, 

Washing her weedy tresses to and fro, 

That round her crouching knees have darkly hung ; 

But she sits careless of waves' ebb and flow, 

Like a lone beacon on a desert coast, 

Showing where all her hope was wrecked and lost. 

Yet whether in the sea or vaulted sky, 

She knoweth not her love's abrupt resort. 

So like a shape of dreams he left her eye, 

Winking with doubt. Meanwhile, the churls' report 

Has thronged the beach with many a curious face, 

That peeps upon her from its hiding-place. 

And here a head, and there a brow half seen, 

Dodges behind a rock. Here on his hands 

A mariner his crumpled cheeks doth lean 

Over a rugged crest. Another stands, 

Holdino; his harmful arr(<w at tlie head, 

Still checked by human caution and strange dread. 

One stops his ears, — another close beholder 

Whispers unto the next his grave surmise ; 

This crouches down, — and just above his shoulder, 

A woman's pity saddens in her eyes, 

And prompts her to befriend that lonely grief, 

With all sweet helps of sisterly relief 

And down the sunny beach she paces slowly, 

With many doubtful pauses by the way ; 

Grief hath an influence so hushed and holy, — 

Making her twice attempt, ere she can lay 

Her hand upon that sea-maid's shoulder white, 

Which makes her startle up in wild affright. 
.5 



66 HEKO AND LEANDER. 

And, like a seal, she leaps into the wave, 
That drowns the shrill remainder of her scream ; 
Anon the sea fills up the watery cave, 
A ad seals her exit with a foamj seam, — 
Lt>aving those baffled gazers on the beach, 
Turning in uncouth wonder each to each. 

Some watch, some call, some see her head emerge^ 
Wherever a brown weed falls through the foam ; 
Some point to white eruptions of the surgfe : — 
But she is vanished to her shady home, 
Under the deep, inscrutable, — and there 
Weeps in a midnight made of her own hair. 

Now here the sighing winds, before unheard, 
Forth from their cloudy caves begin to blow, 
Till all the surface of the deep is stirred, 
Like to the panting grief it hides below ; 
And heaven is covered with a stormy rack 
Soiling the waters with its inky black. 



The screaming fowl resigns her finny prey. 
And labors shoreward with a bendino; wincr, 
Rowing against the wind her toilsome way ; 
Meanwhile, the curling billows chafe, and fling 
Their dewy frost still further on the stones, 
That answer to the wind with hollow groans. 

And here and there a fisher's far-olf bark 
Flies with the sun's last glimpse upon its sail, 
Like a bright flame amid the waters dark, 
Watched with the hope and fear of maidens pale, 
And anxious mothers that upturn their brows. 
Freighting the gasty wind with frequent vows, 



HERO AND LEANDER. 6*3 

For that the horrid deep has no sure track 
To guide love safe into his homely haven. 
And, lo ! the storm grows blacker in its wrath, 
O'er the dark billow brooding like a raven, 
That bodes of death and widow's sorrowino;. 
Under the dusty covert of his wing. 



^05 



And so day ended. But no vesper spark 
Hung forth its heavenly sign ; but sheets of flame 
Played round the savage features of the dark, 
Making night horrible. That night, there came 
A weeping maiden to high Sestos' steep. 
And tore her hair and gazed upon the deep. 

And waved aloft her bright and ruddy torch, 
Whose flame the boastful wind so rudely fanned, 
That oft it would recoil, and basely scorch 
The tender covert of her sheltering hand ; 
Which yet, for love's dear sake, disdained retire. 
And, like a glorying martyr, braved the fire. 

For that was love's own sign and beacon guide 
Across the Hellespont's wide weary space. 
Wherein he nightly struggled with the tide ; 
Look what a red it forges on her face, 
As if she blushed at holding such a light, 
Even in the unseen presence of the night ! 

Whereas her tragic cheek is truly pale, 

And colder than the rude and ruflian air 

That howls into her ear a horrid tale 

Of storm, and wreck, and uttermost despair, 

Saying, " Leander floats amid the surge, 

And those ai-e dismal waves that sing his dirge.^' 



gg HERO AND LEANDER. 

And, hark ! —a grieving voice, trembling and faint, 

Blends with the hollow sobbings of the sea ; 

Like the sad music of a siren's plaint, 

But shriller than Leander's voice should be. 

Unless the wintry death had changed its tone, — 

Wherefore she thinks she hears his spirit moan. 

Por now, upon each brief and breathless pause 
Made by the raging winds, it plainly calls 
On Hero ! Hero ! — whereupon she draws 
Close to the dizzy brink, that ne'er appalls 
Her brave and constant spirit to recoil, 
However the wild billows toss and toil. 

" ! dost thou live under the deep, deep sea ? 
I thought such love as thine could never die ; 
If thou hast gained an immortality 
From the kind pitying sea-god, so will I ; 
And this false cruel tide, that used to sever 
Our hearts, shall be our common home forever I 

' ' There we will sit and sport upon one billow, 
And sing our ocean-ditties all the day, 
And lie together on the same green pillow, 
That curls above us with its dewy spray ; 
And ever in one presence live and dwell, 
Like two twin pearls within the self-same shell.'' 

One moment, then, upon the dizzy verge 

She stands ; — with face upturned against the sky ; 

A moment more, upon the foamy surge 

She gazes, with a calm despairing eye ; 

Feeling that awful pause of blood and breath 

Which life endures when it confronts with death : — 



HERO AND LEANDER. 69 

Then from the giddy steep she madly springs, 
Grasping her maiden robes, that vainly kept 
Panting abroad, like unavailing wings. 
To save her from her death. — The sea-maid wept, 
And in a crystal cave her corse enshrined ; 
No meaner sepulchre should Hero find ! 



LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 



TO J. H. REYNOLDS, ESQ. 

Mt Deau Reynolus : You will remember " Lycus." It was written in the pleasant 
Bpring-time of our friendship, and I am glad to maintain that association, by connect- 
ing your name Arith thj poem. It will gratify ms to find that you regard it with the 
old partiality for the writings of each other which prevailed in those days. For my 
own sake, I must regret that your pen goes now into far other records than those 
whish used to delight me. 

Your true friend and brother, 

T. Hooo. 



LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 

FROM AN UNROLLED MANUSCRIPT OF APOLLONIUS CURIUS. 



THE ARGUMENT. 



Lycus, detained by Circe in her magical dominion, is beloved by a Water 
Nymph, who, desiring to render him immortal, has recourse to the Sorcer- 
ess. Circe gives her an incantation to pronounce, which should turn 
Lycus into a horse ; but the horrible effect of the charm causing her to 
break off in the midst, he becomes a Centaur. 

Who hath ever been lured and bound bj a spell 

To wander, foredoomed, in that circle of hell 

Where Witchery works with her will like a god, 

Works more than the wonders of time at a nod, — * 

At a word, — at a touch, — at a flash of the eye ; 

But each form is a cheat, and each sound is a lie, 

Things born of a wish — to endure for a thought, 

Or last for long ages — to vanish to naught, 

Or put on new semblance ? Jove, I had given 

The throne of a kingdom to know if that heaven 

And the earth and its streams were of Circe, or whether 

They kept the world's birth-day and brightened together ! 

For I loved them in terror, and constantly dreaded 

That the earth where I trod, and the cave where I bedded, 

The face I might dote on, should live out the lease 

Of the charm that created, and suddenly cease : 

And I gave me to slumber, as if from one dream 

To another — each horrid — and drank of the stream 



■'4 LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 

Like a first taste of blood, lest as water I quaffed 

Swift j^oison, and never should breathe from the draught,— 

Such drink as her own monarch-husband drained up 

When he pledged her, and Fate closed his eyes in the cup. 

And I plucked of the fruit with held breath, and a fear 

That the branch would start back and scream out in my ear; 

For once, at my suppering, I plucked in the dusk 

An apple, juice-gushing and fragrant of musk ; 

But by daylight my fingers were crimsoned with gore, 

And the half-eaten fragment was flesh at the core ; 

And once — only once — for the love of its blush, 

I broke a bloom-bough, but there came such a gush 

On my hand, that it fainted away in weak fright, 

While the leaf-h'idden woodpecker shrieked at the sight ; 

And, ! such an agony thrilled in that note. 

That mju soul, startling up, beat its wings in my throat, 

As it longed to be free of a body whose hand 

Was doomed to work torments a Fury had planned 1 

There I stood without stir, yet how willing to flee, 
As if rooted and horror-turned into a tree, — 

! for innocent death,— and, to suddenly win it, 

1 drank of the stream, but no poison was in it ; 
I plunged in its waters, but ere I could sink 
Some invisible fate pulled me back to the brink ; 
I sprang from the rock, from its pinnacle height. 
But fell on the grass with a grasshopper's flight : 
I ran at my fears — they were fears and no more. 

For the bear would not mangle my limbs, nor the boar, 
But moaned, — all their brutalized flesh could not smother 
The horrible truth, — we were kin to each other ! 

They were mournfully gentle, and grouped for relief, 
All foes m their skin, but all friends in their grief: 



LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 75 

The leopard was there, — baby-mild in its feature; 

And the tiger, black-barred, with the gaze of a creature 

That knew gentle pity ; the bristle-backed boar, 

His innocent tusks stained with mulberry gore ; 

And the laughing hyena — but laughing no more , 

And the snake, not with magical orbs to devise 

Strange death, but with woman's attraction of eyes ; 

The tall ugly ape, that still bore a dim shine 

Through his hairy eclipse of a manhood divine ; 

And the elephant stately, with more than its reason, 

How thoughtful in sadness ! but this is no season 

To reckon them up, from the lag-bellied toad 

To the mammoth, whose sobs shook his ponderous load. 

There were woes of all shapes, wretched forms, when I came^ 

That huno; down their heads with a human-like shame ; 

The elephant hid in the boughs, and the bear 

Shed over his eyes the dark veil of his hair ; 

And the womanly soul, turning sick with disgust^ 

Tried to vomit herself from her serpentine crust ; 

While all groaned their groans into one at their lot, 

As I brought them the image of what they were not. 

Then rose a wild sound of the human' voice choking 
Through vile brutal organs — low tremulous croaking ; 
Cries swallowed abruptly — deep animal tones 
Attuned to strange passion, and full-uttered groans ; 
All shuddering weaker, till hushed in a pause 
Of tongues in mute motion and wide-yawning jaws ; 
And I guessed that those horrors were meant to tell o'er 
Tlie tale of their woes, but the silence told more 
That writhed on their tongues ; and I knelt on the sod; 
And prayed with my voice to the cloud-stirring God, 
For the sad congregation of supplicants there. 
That upturned to his heaven brute faces of prayer ; 



76 LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 

And I ceased, and they uttered a moaning so deep, 

That I wept for my heart-ease, — but they could not weep, 

And gazed with red eyeballs, all wistfully dry, 

At the comfort of tears in a stag's human eye. 

Then I motioned them round, and, to soothe their distress^ 

I caressed, and they bent them to meet my caress, 

Their necks to my arm, and their heads to my palm, 

And with poor grateful eyes suffered meekly and calm 

Those tokens of kindness, withheld by hard fate 

From returns that might chill the warm pity to hate ; 

So they passively bowed — save the serpent, that leapt 

To my breast like a sister, and pressingly crept 

In embrace of my neck, and with close kisses blistered 

My lips in rash love, — then drew backward, and glistered 

Her eyes in my face, and, loud hissing affright, 

Dropt down, and swift started away from my sight ! 

This sorrow was theirs, but thrice wretched my lot, 
Turned brute in' my soul, though my body was not 
When I fled from the sorrow of womanly faces, 
That shrouded their woe in the shade of lone jDlaces, 
And dashed off bright tears till their fingers were wet, 
And then wiped their lids with long tresses of jet : 
But I fled — though they stretched out their hands, ali 

entangled 
With hair, and blood-stained of the breasts they had man- 
gled,— 
Though they called — and perchance but to ask had I seen 
Their loves, or to tell the vile wrongs that had been : 
But 1 stayed not to hear, lest the story should hold 
Some hell-form of words, some enchantment, once told, 
Might translate me in flesh to a brute ; and I dreaded 
To gaze on their charms, lest my faith should be wedded 



m 



LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 7'/ 

With son^?3 pity, — - and love in that pity perchance, — 
To a thing not all lovely ; for once at a glance 
Methought, where one sat, I descried a bright wonder 
That flowed like a long silver rivulet under 
The long fenny grass, with so lovely a breast, 
Could it be a snake- tail made the charm of the rest I 

So I roamed in that circle of Horrors, and Fear 
Walked with me, by hills, and in valleys, and near 
Clustered trees for their gloom — not to shelter from heat -- 
But lest a brute shadow should grow at my feet ; 
And besides that full oft in the sunshiny place 
Dark shadows would gather like clouds on its face, 
In the horrible likeness of demons, (that none 
Could see, like invisible flames in the sun ;) 
But grew to one monster that seized on the light. 
Like the dragon that strangles the moon in the night ; 
Fierce sphinxes, long serpents, and asps of the South ; 
Wild birds of huge beak, and all horrors that drouth 
Engenders of slime in the land of the pest, 
Vile shapes without shape, and foul bats of the West, 
Bringing Night on their wings ; and the bodies wherein 
Great Brahma imprisons the spirits of sin, 
ISIany-handed, that blent in one phantom of fight 
Like a Titan, and threatfully warred witli the light ; 
I have heard the wild shriek that gave signal to close, 
When they rushed on that shadowy Python of foes, 
That met with sharp beaks and wide gaping of jaws, 
With flappings of wings, and fierce grasping of claws. 
And whirls of long tails : — I have seen the quick fluttex 
Of fragments dissevered, — and necks stretched to utter 
Long screamings of pain, — the swift motion of blows. 
And wrestling of arms — to the flight at the close, 



78 LYCUS, TflE CENTAUR. 



When the dust of the earth startled upward in rings, 
And flew on the whirlwind that followed their wings. 

Thus thej fled — not forgotten — but often to grow 
Like fears in my ejes, when I walked to and fro 
In the shadows, and felt from some beings unseen 
The warm touch of kisses, but clean or unclean 
I knew not, nor whether the love I had won 
Was of heaven or hell — till one day in the sun, 
In its very noon-blaze, I could fancy a thing 
Of beauty, but faint as the cloud-mirrors fling 
On the gaze of the shepherd that watches the sky, 
Half-seen, and half-dreamed in the soul of his eye. 
And when in my musings I gazed on the stream, 
In motionless trances of thought, there would seem 
A face like that face, looking upAvard through mine, 
With its eyes full of love, and the dim-drowned shine 
Of limbs and fair garments, like clouds in that blue 
Serene : — there I stood for long hours but to view 
Those fond earnest eyes that were ever uplifted 
Towards me, and winked as the water-weed drifted 
Between ; but the fish knew that presence, and plied 
Their long curvy tails, and swift darted aside. 

There I gazed for lost time, and forgot all the things 
That once had been wonders — the fishes with wings, 
And the glimmer of magnified eyes that looked up 
From the glooms of the bottom like pearls in a cup. 
And the huge endless serpent of silvery gleam. 
Slow winding along like a tide in the stream. 
Some maid of the waters, some Naiad, methought 
Held me dear in the pearl of her eye — and I brought 
My wish to that fancy ; and often I dashed 
My limbs in the water, and suddenly splashed 



LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 79 

The cool drops around me, yet clung to the brink, 
Chilled bj watery fears, how that Beauty might sink 
With my life in her arms to her garden, and bind me 
With its long tangled grasses, or cruelly wind me 
In some eddy to hum out my life in her ear, 
Like a spider-caught bee, — and in aid of that fear 
Came the tardy remembrance — 0, falsest of men ! 
Why was not that beauty remembered till then'? 
My love, my safe love, wliose glad life would have run 
Into mine — like a drop — that our f ite might be one, 
That now, even now, — -may-be,— chisped in a dream, 
That form which I gave to some jilt of the stream. 
And gazed with fond eyes that her tears tried to smother 
On a mock of those eyes that I gave to another ! 

Then I rose from the stream, but the eyes of my mind, 
Still full of the tempter, kept gazing behind 
On her crystalline face, while I painfully leapt 
To the bank, and shook off' the cursed waters, and wept 
With my brow in the reeds ; and the reeds to my ear 
Bowed, bent by no wind, and in whispers of fear. 
Growing small with large secrets, foretold me of one 
That loved me, — but to fly from her, and shun 
Her love like a pest — though her love was as true 
To mine as her stream to the heavenly blue ; 
For why should I love her with love that would bring 
All misfortune, like Hate, on so joyous a thing '? 
Because of her rival, — even Her whose witch-face 
[ had slighted, and therefore was doomed in that place 
To roam, and had roamed, where all horrors grew rank 
Nine days ere I wept with my brow on that bank ; 
Her name be not named, but her spite would not fail 
To our love like a blight ; and they told me the tale 



80 LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 

Of Scjlla, and Picus, imprisoned to speak 

His shrill-screaming woe through a woodpecker s beak. 

Then they ceased — I had heard as the voice of my star 
That told me the truth of my fortunes — thus far 
I had read of my sorrow, and lay in the hush 
Of deep meditation, — when, lo ! a light crush 
Of the reeds, and I turned and looked round in the nighfc 
Of new sunshine, and saw, as I sipped of the light 
Narrow- winking, the realized nymph of the stream, 
Rising up from the wave with the bend and the gleam 
Of a fountain, and o'er her white arms she kept throwing 
Bright torrents of hair, that went flowing and flowing 
In falls to her feet, and the blue waters rolled 
Down her limbs like a garment, in many a fold, 
Sun-spangled, gold-broidered, and fled far behind, 
Like an infinite train. So she came and reclined ' 
In the reeds, and I hungered to see her unseal 
The buds of her eyes that would ope and reveal 
The blue that was in them ; and they oped and she raised 
Two orbs of pure crystal, and timidly gazed 
With her eyes on my eyes ; but their color and shine 
Was of that which they looked on, and mostly of mine — 
For she loved me, — except when she blushed, and they sank. 
Shame-humbled, to number the stones on the bank, 
Or her play-idle fingers, while lisping she told me 
How she put on her veil, and in love to behold me 
Would wing through the sun till she fiiinted away 
Like a mist, and then flew to her waters and lay 
In love-patience long hours, and sore dazzled her eves 
In watching for mine 'gainst the midsummer skies. 
But now they were healed, — my heart, it still dances 
When I think of the charm of her changeable glances, 



LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 8"i 

And my image how small when it sank in the deep 

Of her eyes where her soul was, — Alas ! now they weep, 

And none knoweth where. In what stream do her eyes 

Shed invisible tears '? Who beholds where her sighs 

FloAV in eddies, or see the ascents of the leaf 

She has plucked with her tresses ? Who listens her grief 

Like a far fall of waters, or hears where her feet 

Grow emphatic among the bose pebbles, and beat 

Them together '? Ah ! surely her fl6wers float adown 

To the sea unaccepted, and little ones drown 

For need of her mercy, — even he whose twin-brother 

Will miss him forever ; and the sorrowful mother 

Imploreth in vain for his body to kiss 

And cling to, all dripping and cold as it is, 

Because that soft pity is lost in hard pain I 

We loved, — how we loved ! — for I thouo-ht not asjain 

Of the woes that were whispered like fears in that place 

If I gave me to beauty. Her flice was the face 

Far away, and her eyes were the eyes that \rere drowned 

For my absence, — her arms were the arms that sought round : 

And clasped me to naught ; for I gazed and became 

Only true to my falsehood, and had but one name 

For two loves, and called ever on -^gle, sweet maid 

Of the sky-loving waters, — and was not afraid 

Of the sight of her skin ; — for it never could be 

Her beauty and love were misfortunes to me ! 

Thus our bliss had endured for a time-shortened space, 
Like a day made of three, and the smile of her face 
Had been with me for joy, — when she told me indeed 
Her love was self-tasked with a work that would need 
Some short hours, for in truth 'twas the veriest pity 
Our love should not last, and then sang me a ditty 
6 



82 LYCUS. THE CENTAUR. 

Of one with warm lips that sh )uld love her, and love her 

When suns were burnt dim and long ages past over. 

So she fled with her voice, and I patiently nested 

Mj limbs in the reeds, in still quiet, and rested 

Till mj thoughts grew extinct, and I sank in a sleep 

Of dreams, — but their meaning was hidden too deep 

To be read what iheir woe was ; — but still it was woe 

That was writ on all faces that swam to and fro 

In that river of night ; — and the gaze of their eyes 

Was sad, — and the bend of their brows, — and their cries 

Were seen, but I heard not. The warm touch of tears 

Travelled down my cold cheeks, and I shook till my fears 

Awaked me, and, lo ! I was couched in a bower. 

The growth of long summers reared up in an hour ! 

Then I said, in the fear of my dream, I will fly 

From this magic, but could not, because that my eye 

Grew love-idle among the rich blooms ; and the earth 

Held me down with its coolness of touch, and the mirth 

Of some bird was above me, — who, even in fear, 

Would startle the thrush ? and methought there drew near 

A form as of ^gle, — but it was not the face 

Hope made, and I knew the witch- Queen of that place, 

Even Circe the Cruel, that came like a Death 

Which I feared, and yet fled not, for want of my breath. 

There was thought in her face, and her eyes were not raised 

From the grass at her foot, but I saw, as I gazed, 

Her spite — and her countenance changed with her mind, 

As she planned how to thrall me with beauty, and bind 

My soul to her charms, — and her long tresses played 

From shade into shine and from shine into shade, 

Like a day in mid-autumn, — first fair, how fair 1 

With long snaky locks of the adder-black hair 



LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 83 



That clung round her neck, — those dark locks that I prize. 

For the sake of a maid that once loved me with eyes 

Of that fathomless hue, — but they changed as they rolled 

And brightened, and suddenly blazed into gold 

That she combed into flames, and the locks that fell down 

Turned dark as they fell, but I slighted their brown, 

Kor loved, till I saw the light ringlets shed wild, 

That innocence wears when she is but a child ; 

And her eyes,— 0, 1 ne'er had been witched with their shine 

Had they been any other, my JEgle, than thine ! 

Then I gave me to magic, and gazed till I maddened 
In the full of their light, — but I saddened and saddened 
The deeper I looked, — till I sank on the snow 
Of her bosom, a thing made of terror and woe, 
And answered its throb with a shudder of fears, 
And hid my cold eyes from her eyes with my tears, 
And strained her white arms with the still languid weight 
Of a fainting distress. There she sat like the Fate 
That is nurse unto Death, and bent over in shame 
To hide me from her — the true ^gle — that came 
With the words on her lips the false witch had foregiven 
To make me immortal — for now I was even 
At the portals of Death, who but waited the hush 
Of world-sounds in my ear to cry welcome, and rush 
With my soul to the banks of his black-flowing river. 
0, would it had flovm from my body forever, 
Ere I listened those words, when I felt, with a start, 
The life-blood rush back in one throb to my heart, 
And saw the pale lips where the rest of that spell 
Had i^erished in horror — and heard the farewell 
Of that voice that was drowned in the dash of the stream ! 
How fain had I followed, and plunged with that scream 



84 LYCUS. THE CENTAUR. 

Into death, but my being indignantly lagged 

Through the brutalized flesh that I painfully dragged 

Behind me • — " 0, Circe ! 0, mother of spite ! 

Speak the last of that curse ! and imprison me quite 

In the husk of a brute, — that no pity may name 

The man that I was, — that no kindred may claim 

The monster I am ! Let me utterly be 

Brute-buried, and Nature's dishonor with me 

Uninscribed ! " — But she listened my prayer, that was 

praise 
To her malice, with smiles, and advised me to gaze 
On the river for love, — and perchance she would make 
In pity a maid without eyes for my sake, 
And she left me like Scorn. Then I asked of the wave 
What monster I was ; and it trembled and gave 
The true shape of my grief, and I turned with my face 
From all waters forever, and fled through that place, 
Till with horror more strong than pJl magic I passed 
Its bounds, and the world was before me at last. 

There I wandered in sorrow, and shunned the abodes 
Of men, that stood up in the likeness of gods. 
But I saw from afar the warm shine of the sun 
On their cities, where man was a million, not one ; 
And I saw the white smoke of their altars ascending, 
That showed where the hearts of the many were blending, 
And the wind in my face brought shrill voices that came 
From the trumpets that gathered whole bands in one fame 
As a chorus of man, — and they streamed from the gates 
Like a iusky libation poured out to the Fates. 
But at times there were gentler processions of peace. 
That I watched with my soul in my eyes till their cease, " 



LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 85 

There were women ! there men ! but to me a third sex 

I saw them all dots — yet I loved them as specks : 

And ^ft, to assuage a sad yearning of eyes, 

I stole near the city, but stole covert-wise, 

Like a wild beast of love, and perchance to be smitten 

By some hand that I rather had wept on than bitten ! 

0. I once had a haunt near a cot where a m-other 

Daily sat in the shade with her child, and would smother 

Its eyelids in kisses, and then in its sleep 

Sang dreams in its ear of its manhood, while deep 

In a thicket of willows I gazed o'er the brooks 

That murmured between us, and kissed them with looks ; 

But the willows unbosomed their secret, and never 

I returned to a spot I had startled forever. 

Though I oft longed to know, but could ask it of none, 

Was the mother still fair, and how big was her son. 

For the haunters of fields the}^ all shunned me by flight. 
The men in their horror, the women in fright ; 
None ever remained save a child once that sported 
Among the wild bluebells, and painfully courted 
The breeze ; and beside him a speckled snake lay 
Tight strangled, because it had hissed him away 
From the flower at his finger; he rose and drew near 
Like a Son of Immortals, one born to no fear, 
But with strength of black locks and with eyes azure bright 
To grow to large manhood of merciful might. 
H? came, with his face of bold wonder, to feel 
The hair of my side, and to lift up my heel, 
And questioned my face with wide eyes ; but when under 
My lids he saw tears, — for I w^ept at his wonder, 
He stroked me, and uttered such kindliness then. 
That the once love of women, the friendship of men 



86 LYCUS, THE CENTAUR 

In past sorrow, no kindness e'er came like a kiss 

On my heart in its desolate day such as this ; 

And I yearned at his cheeks in my love, and down bent, 

And lifted him up in my arms with intent 

To kiss him,— but he, cruel-kindly, alas ! 

Held out to my lips a plucked handful of grass ! 

Then I dropt him in horror, but felt as I fled 

The stone he indignantly hurled at my head. 

That dissevered my ear, but I felt not, whose fate 

Was to meet more distress in his love than his hate ! 

Thus I wandered, companioned of grief and forlorn. 
Till I wished for that land where my being was born ; 
But what was that land with its love, where my home 
Was self-shut against me ; for why should I come 
Like an after-distress to my gray-bearded father, 
With a bli2;ht to the last of his sidit ? — let him rather 
Lament for me dead, and shed tears in the urn 
Where I was not, and still in fond memory turn 
To his son even such as he left him. 0, how 
Could I walk with the youth once my fellows, but now 
Like gods to my humbled estate 1 — or how bear 
The steeds once the pride of my eyes and the care 
Of my hands ? Then I turned me self-banished, and came 
Into Thessaly here, where I met with the same 
As myself. I have heard how they met by a stream 
In games, and were suddenly changed by a scream 
That made wretches of many, as she rolled her wild eyes 
Against heaven, and so vanished. — The gentle and wise 
Lose their thoughts in deep studies, and others their ill 
En the mirth of mankind where they mingle them still. 



THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT. 



Alas ! that breathing Vanity should go 

Where Pride is buried, — like its very ghost, 

Uprisen from the naked bones below, 
In novel flesh, clad in the silent boast 

Of gaudy silk that flutters to and fro, 
Shedding its chilling superstition most 

On young and ignorant natures — as it wont 

To haunt the peaceful church-yard of Bedfont ! 

Each Sabbath morning, at the hour of prayer. 
Behold two maidens, up the quiet green 

Shining, far distant, in the summer air 

That flaunts their dewy robes and breathes between 

Their downy plumes, — sailing as if they were 
Two far-off ships, — until they brush between 

The church-yard's humble walls, and watch and wait 

On either side of the wide-opened gate. 

And there they stand — with haughty necks before 
God's holy house, that points towards the skies — 

Frowning reluctant duty from the poor, 

And tempting homage from unthoughtful eyes : 

And Youth looks lingering from the temple door, 
Breathing its wishes in unfruitful sighs. 

With pouting lips, — forgetful of the grace, 

Of health, and smiles, on the heart-conscious face ; — 



88 THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT. 

Because that Wealth, which has no bliss beside, 
May wear the happiness of rich attire ; 

And those two sisters, in their silly pride, 

May change the soul's warm glances for the fiie 

Of lifeless diamonds ; — and for health denied,— 
With art, that blushes at itself, inspire 

Their languid cheeks — and flourish in a glory 

That has no life in life, nor after-story. 

The aged priest goes shaking his gray hair 
In meekest censuring, and turns his eye 

Earthward in grief, and heavenward in prayer, 
And sighs, and clasps his hands, and passes by. 

Good-hearted man ! what sullen soul would wear 
Thy sorrow for a garb, and constantly 

Put on thy censure, that might win the praise • 

Of one so gray in goodness and in days ? 

Also the solemn clerk partakes the shame 
Of this ungodly shine of human pride. 

And sadly blends his reverence and blame 
In one grave bow, and passes with a stride 

Impatient : — many a red-hooded dame 

Turns her pained head, but not her glance, aside 

From wanton dress, and marvels o'er again, 

That Heaven hath no wet judgments for the vain. 

" I have a lily in the bloom at home," 

Quoth one, '' and by the blessed Sabbath day 

I '11 pluck my lily in its pride, and come 
And read a lesson upon vain array ; — 

And when stiff silks are rustling up, and some 
Give place, I '11 shake it in proud eyes and say — 

Making my reverence,—' Ladies, an you please, 

King Solomon 's not half so fine as these.' " 



TUE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT. 89 

Then her meek partner, who has nearly run 

His earthly course, — " Nay, Goody, let your text 

Grow in the garden. — We have only one — 

Who knows that these dim eyes may see the next 1 

Summer will come again, and summer sun, 
And lilies too, — but I were sorely vext 

To mar my garden, and cut short the blow 

Of the last lily 1 may live to grow.'^ 

^' The last ! " quoth she, " and though the last it were - 
Lo ! those two wantons, where they stand so proml, 

With waving plumes, and jewels in their hair. 
And painted cheeks, like Dagons to be bowed 

And curtseyed too ! — last Sabbath, after prayer, 
I heard the little Tomkins ask aloud 

If they were angels — but I made him know 

God's bright ones better, with a bitter blow ! 



J3 



So speaking they pursue the pebbly walk 

That leads to the white porch the Sunday throng, 

Hand-coupled urchins in restrained talk, 

And anxious pedagogue that chastens wrong. 

And posied church-warden with solemn stalk. - 
And gold-bedizened beadle flames along. 

And gentle peasant clad in buff and green, 

Like a meek cowslip in the spring serene ; 

And blushing maiden, — modestly arrayed 

In spotless white, — still conscious of tho glass ; 

And she, the lonely vfidow, that hath made 
A sable covenant with grief, — alas ! 

She veils her tears under the deep, deep shade^ 
While 'the poor kindly-hearted, as they pass. 

Bend to unclouded childhood, and caress 

Her boy, — so rosy ! — and so fatherless ! 



90 THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT. 

Thus, as good Christians ought, they all draw near 
The fair white temple, to the timely call 

Of pleasant bells that tremble in the ear. — 
Now the last frock, and scarlet hood, and shawl 

Fade into dusk, in the dim atmosphere 

Of the low porch, and heaven has won them all, 

Saving those two, that turn aside and pass. 

In velvet blossom, where all flesh is grass. 

Ah me ! to see their silken manors trailed 
In purple luxuries — with restless gold, — 

Flaunting the grass where widowhood has wailed 
In blotted black, — over the heapy mould 

Panting wave- wantonly ! They never quailed 
How the warm vanity abused the cold ; 

Nor saw the solemn faces of the gone 

Sadly uplooking through transparent stone : 

But swept their dwellings with unquiet light, 
Shocking the awful presence of the dead ; 

Where gracious natures would their eyes benight, 
Nor wear their being with a lip too red, 

Nor move too rudely in the summer bright 
Of sun, but put staid sorrow in their tread, 

Meting it into steps, with inward breath, 

In very pity to bereaved death. 

Now in the church, time-sobered minds resign 
To solemn prayer, and the loud chanted hymn, - 

With glowing picturings of joys divine 

Painting the mist-light where the roof is dim j 

But youth looks upward to the window shine, 
Warming with rose and purple and the swim 

Of gold, as if thought-tinted by the stains 

Of goi-geous light through many-colored panes ; 



THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT. 9] 

Soiling the virgin snow wherein God hath 
Enrobed his angels, — and with absent ejes 

Hearing of heaven, and its directed path, 

Thoughtful of slippers, — and the glorious skies 

Clouding with satin, — till the preacher's wrath 
Consumes his pitj, and he glows, and cries 

With a deep voice tjiat trembles in its might, - 

And earnest eyes grown eloquent in light : 

"0, that the vacant eje would learn to look 

On very beauty, and the heart embrace 
True loveliness, and from this holy book 

Drink the warm-breathing tenderness and grace. 
Of love indeed ! 0, that the young soul took 

Its virgin passion from the glorious face 
Of fair religion, and addressed its strife 
To win the riches of eternal life ! 

" Doth the vain heart love glory that is none, 

And the poor excellence of vain attire ? 
go, and drown your eyes against the sun, 

The visible ruler of the starry quire, 
Till boiling gold in giddy eddies run. 

Dazzling the brain with orbs of living fire ; 
And the faint soul down darkens into night, 
And dies a burning martyrdom to light. 

" go, and gaze, — when the low winds of even 
Breathe nymns, and Nature's many forests nod 

Their gold-crowned heads ; and the rich blooms of heaven 
Sun-ripened give their blushes up to God ; 

And mountain-rocks and cloudy steeps are riven 
I>y founts of fire, as smitten by the rod 

Of iieavenly Moses, — that your thirsty sense 

May (penoh its longings of magnificence ! 



92 THE TWO PEACOCKS UF BEDFONT. 

" Yet suns shall perish — stars shall fade away — 
Day into darkness — darkness into death — 

Death into silence ; the warm light of day, 

The blooms of summer, the rich glowing breath 

Of even — all shall wither and decay, 

Like the frail furniture of dreams beneath 

The touch of morn — or bubbles of rich dyes 

That break and vanish in the aching eyes." 

They hear, soul-blushing, and repentant shed 

Unwholesome thoughts in wholesome tears, and pour 

Their sin to earth, — and with low drooping head 
Receive the solemn blessing, and implore 

Its grace — then soberly, with chastened tread. 
They meekly press towards the gusty door, 

With humbled eyes that go to graze upon 

The lowly grass — like him of Babylon. 

The lowly grass ! — 0, water-constant mind ! 

Fast-ebbing holiness ! — soon-fading grace 
Of serious thought, as if the gushing wind 

Through the low porch had washed it from the face 
Forever ! — How they lift their eyes to find 

Old vanities ! — Pride wins the very place 
Of meekness, like a bird, and flutters now 
With idle wings on the curl-conscious brow ! 

And, lo ! with eager looks they seek the way 

Of old temptation at the lowly gate ; 
To feast on feathers, and on vain array, 

And painted cheeks, and the rich glistering state 
Of jewel-sprinkled locks.— But where are they, 

The graceless haughty ones that used to wait 
With lofty neck, and nods, and stiifened eye? — 
None 'challenge the old homage bending by. 



THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT. 93 

In vain they look for the ungracious bloom 
Of rich apparel where it glowed before, — 

For vanity has faded all to gloom, 

And lofty Pride has stiffened to the core, 

For impious Life to tremble at its doom. — 
Set for a warning token evermore, 

Whereon, as now, the giddy and the wise 

Shall gaze with lifted hands and wondering eyes. 

The aged priest goes on each Sabbath morn, 
But shakes not sorrow under his gray hair ; 

The solemn clerk goes lavendered and shorn, 
Nor stoops his back to the ungodly pair ; — 

And ancient lips, that puckered up in scorn, 
Go smoothly breathing to the house of prayer ; 

And ki the garden-plot, from day to day. 

The lily blooms its long white life away. 

And where two haughty maidens used to be, 

In pride of plume, where plumy Death had trod, 

Trailing their gorgeous velvets wantonly. 
Most unmeet pall, over the holy sod ; — 

There, gentle stranger, thou may'st only see 

Two sombre Peacocks. Age? with sapient nod 

Marking the spot, still tarries to declare 

How they once lived, and wherefore they are there. 



THE TWO SWANS 



A FAIRY TALE. 



Immortal Imogen, crowned queen above 
The lilies of thy sex, vouchsafe to hear 
A fairy dream in honor of true love — 
True above ills, and frailty, and all fear — 
Perchance a shadow of his own career 
Whose youth was darkly prisoned and long twined 
By serpent-sorrow, till white Love drew near, 
And sweetly sang him free, and round his mind 
A bright horizon threw, wherein no grief may wind. 

I saw a tower builded on a lake. 
Mocked by its inverse shadow, dark and deep — 
That seemed a still intenser night to make, 
Wherein the quiet waters sunk to sleep, — 
And, whatsoe'er was prisoned in that keep, 
A monstrous Snake was warden : — round and round 
In sable ringlets I beheld him creep 
Blackest amid black shadows to the ground, 
Whilst his enormous head the topmost turret crowned. 

From whence he shot fierce light against the stars, 
Making the pale moon paler with afiright ; 
And with his ruby eye out-threatened Mars — 
That blazed in the mid-heavens, hot and bright — 



THE TWO SWANS. 96 

Kor slept nor winked, but with a steadfest spite 
Watched their wan looks and tremblings in the skies; 
And, that lie might not slumber in the night, 
The curtain-lids were plucked from his large eyes, 
So he might never drowse, but watch his secret prize. 

Prince or princess in dismal durance pent, 
Victims of old Enchantment's love or hate, 
Their lives must all in painful sighs be spent, 
Watching the lonely waters soon and late, 
And clouds that pass and leave them to their fate, 
Or company their grief with heavy tears : — 
Meanwhile that Hope can spy no golden gate 
For sweet escapement, but in darksome fears 
They weep and pine away as if immortal years. 

No gentle bird with gold upon its wing 
Will perch upon the grate — the gentle bird 
Is safe in leafy dell, and will not bring 
Freedom's sweet key-note and commission word 
Learned of a fairy's lips, for pity stirred — 
Lest while he trembling sings, untimely guest ! 
Watched by that cruel Snake and darkly heard, 
He leave a widow on her lonely nest, 
To press in silent grief the darlings of her breast. 

No gallant knight, adventurous, in his bark, 
Will seek the fruitful perils of the place, 
To rouse with dipping oar the waters dark 
That bear the serpent-image on their face. 
And Love, brave Love ! though he attempt the base. 
Nerved to his loyal death, he may not win 
His captive lady from the strict embrace 
Of that foul Serpent, clasping her within 
His sable folds — like Eve enthralled by the old Sin. 



96 



THE TWO SWANS. 



But lliere is none — no knight in panoply, 
Nor Love, intrenched in his strong steely coat : 
No little speck — no sail — no helper nigh, 
]^Q gio-ii — no ^vhispering — no plash of boat : — 
The distant shores show dimly and remote, ■ 
Made of a deeper mist, — serene and gray, — 
And slow and mute the cloudy shadows float 
Over the gloomy wave, and pass away, 
Chased by the silver beams that on their marges play. 

And bright and silvery the willows sleep 
Over the shady verge — no mad winds tease 
Their hoary heads ; but quietly they weep 
There sprinkling leaves — half fountains and half trees 
There lilies be — and fairer than all these, 
A solitary Swan her breast of snow 
Launches against the wave that seems to freeze 
Into a chaste reflection, still below 
Twin-shadow of herself wherever she may go. I 

And forth she paddles in the very noon 
Of solemn midnight like an elfin thing, 
Charmed into being by the argent moon — 
Whose silver light for love of her fair wing; 
Goes with her in the shade, still worshipping 
Her dainty plumage : — all around her grew 
A radiant circlet, like a fairy rino- ; 
And all behind,' a tiny little clue 
Of light, to guide her back across the waters blue. 

And sure she is no meaner than a fay, 
Redeemed from sleepy death, for beauty's sake, 
By old ordainment : — silent as she lay. 
Touched by a moonlight wand I saw her wake, 



? 



I 



THE TWO SWANS. 97 

And cut her leafy slough, and so forsake 
The verdant prison of her lily peers, 
That slept amidst the stars upon the lake — 
A breathing shape — restored to human fears, 
And new-born love and grief — self-conscious of her tears 

And now she clasps her wings around her heart. 
And near that lonely isle begins to glide 
Pale as her fears, and ofttimes with a start 
Turns her impatient head from side to side 
In universal terrors — all too wide 
To watch ; and often to that marble keep 
Upturns her pearly eyes, as if she spied 
Some foe, and crouches in the shadows steep 
That in the gloomy wave go diving fathoms deep. 

And well she may, to spy that fearful thing 
All down the dusky walls in circlets wound ! 
Alas ! for what rare prize, with many a ring 
Girdino; the marble casket round and round 1 
His folded tail, lost in the gloom profound. 
Terribl}'- darkeneth the rocky base ; 
But on the top his monstrous head is crowned 
With prickly spears, and on his doubtful face 
Gleam his unwearied eyes, red watchers of the place. 

Alas ! of the hot fires that nightly fall, 
No one will scorch him in those orbs of spite. 
So he may never see beneath the wall 
That timid little creature, all too bright, 
That stretches her fair neck, slender and white. 
Invoking the pale moon, and vainly tries 
Her throbbing throat, as if to charm the night 
With song — but, hush — it perishes in sighs, 
And there will be no dirge, sad swelling though she dies ! 

7 



98 THE TWO SWANS. 

She droops — she sinks — she leans upon the lake, 
Fainting again into a lifeless flower ; 
But soon the chilly springs anoint and wake 
Her spirit from its death, and with new power 
She sheds her stifled sorrows in a shower 
Of tender sono;, timed to her fallino; tears — 
That wins the shady summit of that tower, 
And, trembling all the sweeter for its fears, 
. Fills with imploring moan that cruel monster's ears. 

And, lo ; the scaly beast is all deprest, 
Subdued like Argus by the might of sound — 
What time Apollo his sweet lute addrest 
To magic converse with the air, and bound 
The many monster eyes, all slumber-drowned : — 
So on the turret-top that watchful snake 
Pillows his giant head, and lists profound, 
As if his wrathful spite would never wake, 
Charmed into sudden sleep for Love and Beauty's sake ! 

His prickly crest lies prone upon his crown, 
And thirsty lip from lip disparted flies, 
To drink that dainty flood of music down — 
His scaly throat is big with pent-up sighs — 
And whilst his hollow ear entranced lies. 
His looks for envy of the charmed sense 
Are fain to listen, till his steadfast eyes. 
Stung into pain by their own impotence, 
Distil enormous tears into the lake immense. 

0, tuneful Swan ! 0, melancholy bird ! 

Sweet was that midnio-ht miracle of sono:, 

Rich with ripe sorrow, needful of no word 

To te^l of pain, and love, and love's deep wrong — 



THE TWO SWANS. 99 

Hinting a piteous tale — perchance how long 
Thj unknown tears were mingled with the lake, 
"\Miat time disguised thy leafy mates among — 
And no eye knew what human love and ache 
Dwelt in those dewy leaves, and heart so nigh to break 

Therefore no poet will ungently touch 
The water-lily, on whose eyelids dew 
Trembles like tears ; but ever hold it such 
As human pain may wander through and through, 
Turning the pale leaf paler in its hue — 
Wherein life dwells, transfi2;ured. not entombed. 
By magic spells. Alas ! who ever knew 
Sorrow in all its shapes, leafy and plumed, 
Or in gross husks of brutes eternally inhumed 7 



And now the vrino-ed sono; has scaled the height 
Of that dark dwelling, builded for despair, 
And soon a little casement flashins; brischt 
Widens self-opened into the cool air — 
That music like a bird may enter there 
And soothe the captive in his stony cage ; 
For there is naught of grief, or painful care, 
But plaintive song may happily engage 
From sense of its own ill, and tenderly assuage. 

And forth into the light, small and remote, 
A creature, like the fair son of a kins:, 
Draws to the lattice in his iewelled coat 
Ao^ainst the silver moonlig;ht o-listenino;, 
And leans upon his white hand listening 
To that sweet music that with tenderer tone 
Salutes him. wondering ^hat kindly thing 
Is come to soothe him with so tuneful moan. 
Singmg beneath the walls as if for him alone ' 



IQQ THE TWO SWANS. 

And while lie listens, the mysterious song, 
Woven with timid particles of speech, 
Twines into passionate words that grieve along 
The melancholy notes, and softly teach 
The secrets of true love, — that trembling reach 
His earnest ear, and through the shadows dun 
He missions like replies, and each to each 
Their silver voices mingle into one, 
Like blended streams that make one music as they run, 

" Ah ! Love, my hope is swooning in my heart, — 
Ay, sweet, my cage is strong and hung full high — 
Alas ! our lips are held so far apart. 
Thy words come faint, they have so far to fly ! — 
If I may only shun that serpent eye, — 
Ah me ! that serpent eye doth never sleep ; — 
Then, nearer thee, Love's martyr, I will die ! — 
Alas, alas ! that word has made me weep ! 
For Pity's sake remain safe in thy marble keep ! 

" My marble keep ! it is my marble tomb — 
Nay, sweet ! but thou hast there thy living breath — ■ 
Aye to expend in sighs for this hard doom ; — 
But I will come to thee and sing beneath. 
And nightly so beguile this serpent wreath ; — 
Nay, I will find a path from these despairs. 
Ah, needs then thou must tread the back of death, 
Making his stony ribs thy stony stairs. — 
Behold his ruby eye, how fearfully it glares ! " 

Full sudden at these words the princely youth 
Leaps on the scaly back that slumbers, still 
Unconscious of his foot, yet not for ruth. 
But numbed to dulness by the fairy skill 



THE TWO SWANS. . 101 

Of that sweet music, (all more wild and shrill 
For intense fear,) that charmed him as he lay — 
Meanwhile the lover nerves his desperate will, 
Held some short throbs by natural dismay, 
Then down, down the serpent- track begins his darksome way 

Now dimly seen — now toiling out of sight, 
Eclipsed and covered by the envious wall ; 
Now fair and spangled in the sudden light, 
And clinging with wide arms for fear of fall ; 
Now dark and sheltered by a kindly pall 
Of dusky shadow from his wakeful foe ; 
Slowly he winds adown — dimly and small. 
Watched by the gentle swan that sings below, 
tier hope increasing, still, the larger he doth grow. 

But nine times nine the serpent folds embrace 
The marble walls about — which he must tread 
Before his anxious foot may touch the base : 
Long is the dreary path, and must be sped ! 
But Love, that holds the mastery of dread, 
Braces his spirit, and with constant toil 
He wins his way, and now, with arms outspread, 
Impatient plunges from the last long coil : 
So may all gentle Love ungentle Malice foil. 

The song is hushed, the charm is all complete, 
And two fair Swans are swimming on the lake : 
But scarce their tender bills have time to meet, 
When fiercely drops adown that cruel Snake — 
His steely scales a fearful rustling make, 
Like autumn leaves that tremble and foretell 
The sable storm ; — the plumy lovers quake — 
And feel the troubled waters pant and swell, 
Heaved by the giant bulk of their pursuer fell. 



1^02 THE TWO SWANS. 

His jaws, wide yawning like the gates of Death, _ 

Hiss horrible pursuit — his red eyes glare ^ 

The waters into blood — his eager breath 
Grows hot upon their plumes : — now, minstrel fair ! 
She drops her ring into the waves, and there 
It widens all around, a fairy ring 
Wrought of the silver light — the fearful pair 
Swim in the very midst, and pant and cling 
The closer for their fears, and tremble wing to wing. 

Bending their course over the pale gray lake. 
Against the pallid East, wherein light played 
In tender flushes, still the baffled Snake 
Circled them round continually, and bayed 
Hoarsely and loud, forbidden to invade 
The sanctuary ring — his sable mail 
Rolled darkly through the flood, and writhed and made 
A shining track over the waters pale. 
Lashed into boiling foam by his enormous tail. 

And so they sailed into the distance dim. 
Into the very distance — small and white, 
Like snowy blossoms of the spring that swim 
Over the brooklets — followed by the spite 
Of that huge Serpent, that with wild afiright 
Worried them on their course, and sore annoy, 
Till on the grassy marge I saw them 'light, 
And change, anon, a gentle girl and boy, 
Locked in embrace of sweet unutterable joy ! ' 

Then came the Morn, and with her pearly showers 
Wept on them, like a mother, in whose eyes 
Tears are no grief ; and from his rosy bowers 
The Oriental sun began to rise, 



THE TWO SWANS. 103 

Chasing the darksome shadows from the skies ; 
Wherewith that sable Serpent ftir away 
Fled, like a part of night — delicious sighs 
From waking bosoms purified the daj, 
And little birds were singing sweetly from each spray. 



THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM 



'T WAS m the prime of summer time, 

An evening calm and cool, 
And four-and-twenty happy boys 

Came bounding out of school : 
There were some that ran, and some that leapt, 

Like troutlets in a pool. 

Away they sped with gamesome minds, 

And souls untouched by sin ; 
To a level mead they came, and there 

They drave the wickets in : 
Pleasantly shone the setting sun 

Over the town of Lynn. 

Like sportive deer they coursed about, 

And shouted as they ran, — 
Turning to mirth all things of earth, 

As only boyhood can ; 
But the Usher sat remote from all, 

A melancholy man I 

His hat was off, his vest apart. 

To catch heaven's blessed breeze ; 

For a burning thought was in his brow, 
And his bosom ill at ease : 

So he leaned his head on his hands, and read 
The book between his knees ! 



THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 105 

Leaf after leaf he turned it o'er, 

Nor ever glanced aside, 
For the peace of his soul he read that book 

In the golden eventide : 
Much studj had made him very lean, 

And pale, and leaden-eyed. 

At last he shut the ponderous tome, 

With a fast and fervent grasp 
He strained the dusky covers close, 

And fixed the brazen hasp : 
" 0, God ! could I so close my mind, 

And clasp it with a clasp 1 '' 

Then leaping on his feet upright, 

Some moody turns he took, — 
Now up the mead, then down the mead, 

And past a shady nook, — 
And, lo ! he saw a little boy 

That pored upon a book ! 

*' My gentle lad, what is 't you read — 

Romance or fairy fable ? 
Or is it some historic page. 

Of kings and crowns unstable? " 
The young boy gave an upward glance,— 

"It is 'The Death of Abel.'" 

The Usher took six hasty strides. 

As smit with sudden pain, — 
Six hasty strides beyond the place. 

Then slowly back again ; 
And down he sat beside the lad, 

And talked with him of Cain ; 



106 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 

And, long since then, of bloody men, 
Whose deeds tradition saves ; 

Of lonely folk cut off unseen, 
And hid in sudden graves ; 

Of horrid stabs in groves forlorn, 
And murders done in caves ; 

And how the sprites of injured men 
Shriek upward from the sod, — 

Ay, how the ghostly hand will point 
To show the burial clod ; 

And unknown facts of guilty acts 
Are seen in dreams from God ' 

He told how murderers walk the earth 
Beneath the curse of Cain, — 

With crimson clouds before their eyes, 
And flames about their brain • 

For blood has left upon their souls 
Its everlasting stain ! 

" And well," quoth he, "I know, for truth, 
Their pangs must be extreme, — 

Woe, woe, unutterable woe, — 

Who spill life's sacred stream ! 

For why 7 Methought, last night, I wrought 
A murder, in a dream ! 

" One that had never done me wrong — 

A feeble man and old ; 
I led him to a lonely field, — 

The moon shone clear and cold : 
Now here, said I, this man shall die, 

And I will have his gold ! 



THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 107 

'' Two sudden blows with a ragged stick. 

And one with a heavy stone, 
One hurried gash with a hastj knife, — 

And then the deed was done : 
There was nothing lying at my foot 

But lifeless flesh and bone ! 



" Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone. 
That could not do me ill ; 

And yet I feared him all the more, 
For lying there so still : 

There was a manhood in his look, 
' That murder could not kill ! 



" And, lo ! the universal air 

Seemed lit with ghastly flame ; - 

Ten thousand thousand dreadful eyes 
Were looking down in blame : 

I took the dead man by his hand. 
And called upon his name ! 

^* 0, God ! it made me quake to see 
Such sense within the slain ! 

But when I touched the lifeless clay, 
The blood gushed out amain ! 

For every clot, a burning spot 
Was scorching in my brain \ 

*' Mj head was like an ardent coal, 

My heart as solid ice ; 
My wretched, wretched soul, I kneW; 

Was at tlie devil's price : 
A dozen times I groaned ; the dead 

Had never groaned but twice ! 



108 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 

"And now, from forth the frownmg sky, 
From the heaven's topmost height, 

I heard a voice — the a^vful voice 
Of the blood-avenging sprite : — 

' Thou guilty man ! take up thy dead 
And hide it from my sight ! ' 

" I took the dreary body up. 

And cast it in a stream, — 
A sluggish water, black as ink, 

The depth was so extreme : — 
My gentle Boy, remember this 

Is nothing but a dream ! 

" Down went the corse with a hollow plunge^ 

And vanished in the pool ; 
Anon I cleansed my bloody hands. 

And washed my forehead cool. 
And sat among the urchins young, 

That evening, in the school. 

" 0, Heaven ! to think of their white souls, 
And mine so black and grim ! 

I could not share in childish prayer, 
Nor join in evening hymn : 

Like a devil of the pit I seemed, 
'Mid holy cherubim ! 

" And peace went with them, one and all. 
And each calm pillow spread ; 

But Guilt was my grim chamberlain 
That lighted me to bed ; 

And drew my midnight curtains round, 
With fingers bloody red ! 



THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 109 

" A.11 night I lay in agony, 

In anguisli dark and deep ; 
My fevered eyes I dared not close, 

But stared agliast at Sleep : 
For Sin had rendered unto her 

The keys of hell to keep ! 

'' All night I lay in agony. 

From weary chime to chime, 
With one besetting horrid hint. 

That racked me all the time ; 
A mighty yearning, like the first 

Fierce impulse unto crime ! 

'' One stern tyrannic thought, that made 

All other thoughts its slave ; 
Stronger and stronger every pulse 

Did that temptation crave, — 
Still urging me to go and see 

The Dead Man in his grave ' 

'' Heavily I rose up, as soon 

As light was in the sky. 
And sought the black accursed pool 

With a wild misgiving eye ; 
And I saw the Dead in the river bed, 

For the faithless stream was dry. 

"Merrily rose the lark, and shook 

The dew-drop from its wing ; 
But I never marked its morning flight, 

I never heard it sing : 
For I was stooping once again 

Under the horrid thing. 



LIO THE DREAM OF EUGENE AEAM. 

'^ With breathless speed, like a soul in chase, 
I took him up and ran ; — 

There was no time to dig a grave 
Before the day began : 

In a lonesome wood, with heaps of leaves, 
I hid the murdered man ! 

* And all that day I read in school, 
But my thought was other where ; 

As soon as the mid-day task was done, 
In secret 1 was there : 

And a mighty wind had swept the leaves, 
And still the corse was bare ! 

" Then down I cast me on my face, 

And first began to weep. 
For I knew my secret then was one 

That earth refused to keep : 
Or land or sea, though he should be 

Ten thousand fiithoms deep. 

" So wills the fierce avenging Sprite, 
Till blood for blood atones ! 

Ay, though he 's buried in a cave, 
And trodden down with stones, 

And years have rotted off" his flesh, — 
The world shall see his bones ! 

"0, God ! that horrid, horrid dream 

Besets me now awake ! 
Again — again, with dizzy brain, 

The human life I take ; 
And my red right hand grows raging hot, 

Like Cranmer's at the stake. 



THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. Ill 

" And still no peace for the restless clay 

Will wave or mould allow ; 
The horrid thing pursues my soul, — 

It stands before me now ! " 
The fearful Boy looked up, and saw 

Huge drops upon his brow. 

That very night, while gentle sleep 

The urchin eyelids kissed, 
Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn 

Through the cold and heavy mist : 
And Eu2;ene Aram walked between 

With gyves upon his wrist. 



THE ELM TREE 

A DREAM IN THE WOODS. 



And this our life, exempt from public haunt, 
finds tongues in trees." As You Like b 



'T WAS in a shady avenue, 
Where lofty elms abound — 
And from a tree 
There came to me 
A sad and solemn sound, 
That sometimes murmured overhead, 
And sometimes underground. 



O" 



Amongst the leaves it seemed to sigh, 
Amid the boughs to moan ; 

It muttered in the stem, and then 
The roots took up the tone ; 

As if beneath the dewy grass 
The dead began to groan. 

No breeze there was to stir the leaves ; 

No bolts that tempests launch, 
To rend the trunk or rugged bark ; 

No gale to bend the branch ; 
No quake of earth to heave the roots, 

That stood so stiff and ?tanch. 



THE ELM TREE. 113 

No bird was preening up aloft, 

To rustle with its wing ; 
No squirrel, in its sport or fear, 
From bough to bough to spring 
The solid bole 
Had ne'er a hole 
To hide a living thing ! 

No scooping hollow cell to lodge 
A furtive beast or fowl, 
The martin, bat. 
Or forest cat 
That nightly loves to prowl, 
Nor ivy nook so apt to shroud 
The moping, snoring owl. 

But still the sound was in my ear, 

A sad and solemn sound, 
That sometimes murmured overhead, 

And sometimes underg-round — 
'T was in a shady avenue 

Where lofty elms abound. 

0, hath the Dryad still a tongue 
In this uno'enial clime '? 

o 

Have sylvan spirits still a voice 

As in the classic prime — 
To make the forest voluble, 

As in the olden time '? 

The olden time is dead and gone ; 

Its years have iilled their sum — 
And even in Greece — her native Greece - - 

The sylvan nymph is dumb — 
From ash, and beech, and aged oak, 

No classic whispers come. 

8 



|]4 THE ELM TREE. 

From poplar, pine, and drooping birch, 
And fragrant linden trees ; 
No living sound 
E'er hovers round,- 
Unless the vagrant breeze. 
The music of the merry bird, 
Or hum of busy bees. 

But busy bees forsake the elm 
That bears no bloom aloft — 

The finch was in the hawthorn- bush, 
The blackbird in the croft ; 

And among the firs the brooding dove 
That else might murmur soft. 

Yet still I heard that solemn sound, 

And sad it was to boot^ 
From every overhanging bough, 

And each minuter shoot ; 
Fro'^j rugged trunk and messy rind, 

And from the twisted root. 

From these, — a melancholy moan; 

From those, — a dreary sigh ; 
As if the boughs were wintry bare, 

And wild winds sweeping by — 
Whereas the smallest fleecy cloud 

Was steadfast in the sky. 

No sign or touch of stirring air 
Could either sense observe — 

The zephyr had not breath enough 
The thistle-down to swerve, 

Or force the filmy gossamers 
To take another curve. 



THE ELM TREE. 

In still and silent slumber hushed 

All Nature seemed to be : 
From heaven above, or earth beneath. 

No whisper came to me — 
Except the solemn sound and sad 

From that Mysterious Tree ! 

A hollow, hollow, hollow sound, 

As is that dreamy roar 
When distant billows boil and bound 

Along a shingly shore — 
But the ocean brim was far aloof, 

A hundred miles or more. 

No murmur of the gusty sea, 

No tumult of the beach, 
However they may foam and fret, 

The bounded sense could reach — 
Methought the trees in mystic tongue 

Were talking each to each ! — 

Mayhap, rehearsmg ancient tales 
Of greenwood love or guilt, 
Of whispered vows 
Beneath their boughs ; 
Or blood obscurely spilt ; 
Or of that near-hand mansion-house 
A royal Tudor built. 

Perchance, of booty won or shared 
Beneath the starry cope — 

Or where the suicidal wretch 
Hung up the fatal rope ; 

Or Beauty kept an evil tryste, 
Ensnared by Love and Hope 



115 



■^■^Q THE ELM TREE. 

Of graves, perchance, untimely scoopecl 

At midnight dark and dank — 
And what is underneath the sod 
Whereon the grass is rank — 
Of old intrigues, 
And privy leagues, 
Tradition leaves in blank. 

Of traitor lips that muttered plots — 
Of kin who fought and fell — 

God knows the undiscovered schemes, 
The arts and acts of hell, 

Performed long generations since, 
If trees had tongues to tell ! 

With wary eyes, and ears alert, 

As one who walks afraid, 
I wandered down the dappled path 

Of mingled light and shade — 
How sweetly gleamed that arch of blue 

Beyond the green arcade ! 

How cheerly shone the glimpse of heaven 

Beyond that verdant aisle ! 

All overarched with lofty elms, 

That quenched the light, the while, 

As dim and chill 

As serves to fill 

Some old cathedral pile 1 

And many a gnarled trunk was there, 
That ages long had stood, 

Till Time had wrought them into shapes 
Like Pan"s fantastic brood ; 

Or still more foul and hideous forms 
That pagans carve in wood ! 



THE ELM TREE. "^ *7 

A crouching Satyr lurking here — 

And there a Goblin grim — 
As staring full of demon life 

As Gothic sculptor's whim — 
A marvel it had scarcely been 

To hear a voice from him ! 

Some whisper from that horrid mouth 

Of strange, unearthly tone ; 
Or wild infernal laugh, to chill 

One's marrow in the bone. 
But no it grins like rigid Death, 

And silent as a stone ! 

As silent as its fellows be, 

For all is mute with them — 
The branch that climbs the leafy roof — 
The rough and mossy stem — 
The crooked root, 
And tender shoot. 
Where hangs the dewy gem. 

One mystic tree alone there is. 

Of sad and solemn sound — 
That sometimes murmurs overhead, 

And sometimes undersiround — 

o 

In all that shady avenue. 
Where lofty elms abound. 



PART II. 



The scene is changed ! No green arcade, 



No trees all ranged a-row 



"l^-jg HIE ELM TREE. 

But scattered like a beaten host, 

Dispersing to and fro ; 
With here and the ^e a sylvan corse, 

That fell before the foe. 

The foe that down in yonder dell 
Pursues his daily toil ; 

As witness many a prostrate trunk, 
Bereft of leafy spoil, 

Hard by its wooden stump, whereon 
The adder loves to coil. 



Alone he works — his ringing blows 
Have banished bird and beast ; 

The hind and fawn have cantered off 
A hundred yards at least ; 

And 'on the maple's lofty top 
The linnet's song has ceased. 

No eye his labor overlooks, 
Or when he takes his rest ; 

Except the timid thrush that peeps 
Above her secret nest, 

Forbid by love to leave the young 
Beneath her speckled breast. 

The woodman's heart is in his work, 

His axe is sharp and good : 

With sturdy arm and steady aim 

He smites the gaping wood ; 

From distant rocks 

His lusty knocks 

Reecho many a rood. 



THE ELM TREE. 11 

His axe is keen, his arm is strong ; 

The muscles serve him well ; 
His years have reached an extra span, 

The number none can tell; 
But still his life-long task has been 

The timber tree to fell. 

Through summer's parching sultriness, 
And winter's freezing cold. 
From sapling youth 
To virile growth, 
And ao;e's ridd mould, 
His enero-etic axe hath runo; 
Within that forest old. 

Aloft, upon his poising steel 

The vivid sunbeams glance — 
About his head and round his feet 

The forest shadows dance ; 
And bounding from his russet coat 

The acorn drops askance. 

His face is like a Druid's face, 

With wrinkles furrowed deep, 
And tanned by scorching suns as brown 

As corn that 's ripe to reap ; 
But the hair on brow, and cheek, and chin, 

Is white as wool of sheep. 

His frame is like a giant's frame ; 

His leojs are lono- and stark : 
His arms like limbs of knotted yew ; ' 
His hands like rugged bark ; 
So he felleth still 
With right good will, 
As if to build an ark ! 



120 THE ELM TREE. 

.' well within his fatal path 

The fearful tree might quake 
Through every fibre, twig, and leaf, 
With aspen tremor shake ; 
Through trunk and root, 
And branch and shoot, 
A low complaining make ! 

! well to him the tree might breathe 

A sad and solemn sound, 
A sigh that murmured overhead, 

And groans from underground ; 
As in that shady avenue 

Where lofty elms abound ! 

But calm and mute the maple stands. 
The plane, the ash, the fir. 

The elm, the beech, the drooping birch, 
Without the least demur ; 

And e'en the aspen's hoary leaf 
Makes no unusual stir. 

The pines — those old gigantic pines, 
That writhe — recalling soon 

The famous human group that writhes 
With snakes in wild festoon — 

In ramous wrestlings interlaced 
A forest Laocoon — 

Like Titans of primeval girth 

^ By tortures overcome, 
Their brown enormous limbs they twine, 

Bedewed with tears of gum — 
Fierce agonies that ought to yell, 
But, like the marble, dumb. 



THE ELM TREE. 121 

Nay, yonder blasted elm that stands 

So like a man of sin. 
Who, frantic, flings his arms abroad 

To feel the worm within — 
For all that gesture, so intense, 

It makes no sort of din ! 

An universal silence reigns 

In rugged bark or peel. 
Except that very trunk which rings 

Beneath the biting steel — 
Meanwhile the woodman plies his axe 

With unrelentino; zeal ! 

No rustic song is on his tongue, 

No whistle on his lips ] 
But with a quiet thoughtfulness 

His trusty tool he grips, 
And, stroke on stroke, keeps hacking out 

The bright and flying chips. 

Stroke after stroke, with frequent dint 

He spreads the fatal gash ; 
Till, lo ! the remnant fibres rend, 

With harsh and sudden crash, 
And on the dull-resounding turf 

The jarring branches lash ! 

I now the forest trees may sigh, 

The ash, the poplar tall, 
The elm, the birch, the drooping beech. 
The aspens — one and all, 
With solemn groan 
And hollow moan 
Lament a comrade's fall ! 



J22 THE ELM TREE. 

A goodly elm, of noble girth, 
That, thrice the human span — 

While on their variegated course 
The constant seasons ran — 

Through gale, and hail, and fiery bolt, 
Had stood erect as man. 

But now, like mortal man himself, 
Struck down by hand of God, 

Or heathen idol tumbled prone 
Beneath the Eternal's nod, 

In all its giant bulk and length 
It lies along the sod ! 

Ay, now the forest trees may grieve 
And make a common moan 

Around that patriarchal trunk 
So newly overthrown ; 

And with a murmur recognize 
A doom to be their own ! 



The echo sleeps : the idle axe, 

A disregarded tool. 
Lies crushing with its passive weight 

The toad's reputed stool — 
The woodman wipes his dewy brow 

Within the shadows cool. 

No zephyr stirs : the ear may catch 
The smallest insect-hum ; 

But on the disappointed sense 
No mystic whispers come ; 

No tone of sylvan sympathy, 
The forest trees are dumb. 



THE ELM TREE. 12? 

No leafy noise, nor inward voice, 

No sad and solemn sound, 
That sometimes murmurs overhead. 

And sometimes underground ; 
As in that shady avenue, 

Where lofty elms abound ! 



PART in. 

The deed is done : the tree is low 

That stood so long and firm ; 
The woodman and his axe are gone, 

His toil has found its term ; 
And where he wrought the speckled thrush 

Securely hunts the worm. 

The cony from the sandy bank 

Has run a rapid race, 
Through thistle, bent, and tangled fern, 

To seek the open space ; 
And on its haunches sits erect 

To clean its furry face. 

The dappled fawn is close at hand. 

The hind is browsing near, — 
And on the larch's lowest bough 
The ousel whistles clear ; 
But checks the note 
Within its throat. 
As choked with sudden fear ! 



^24 THE ELM TREE. 

With sudden fear her wormy quest 
The thrush abruptly quits — 

Through thistle, bent, and tangled fern 
The startled cony flits ; 

And on the larch's lowest bough 
No more the ousel sits. 

With sudden fear 
The dappled deer 
Effect a swift escape ; 
But well might bolder creatures start, 

And fly, or stand agape, 
With rising hair and curdled blood, 
To see so grim a Shape ! 

The very sky turns pale above ; 

The earth grows dark beneath ] 
The human terror thrills with cold, 

And draws a shorter breath — 
An universal panic owns 

The dread approach of Death ! 

With silent pace, as shadows come, 
And dark as shadows be, 

The grisly phantom takes his stand 
Beside the fallen tree, 

And scans it with his gloomy eyes. 
And laughs with horrid glee 

A dreary laugh and desolate, 
Where mirth is void and null, 

As hollow as its echo sounds 
Within the hollow skull — 

•' Whoever laid this tree alonsj. 
His hatchet was not dull ! 



THE ELM TREE. 125 

" The human arm and human tool 

Have done their duty well ! 
But after sound of ringing axe 
Must sound the ringing knell ; 
When elm or oak 
Have felt the stroke 
My turn it is to fell ! 

' No passive unregarded tree, 

A senseless thing of wood, 
Wherein the sluggish sap ascends 

To swell the vernal bud — 
But conscious, moving, breathing trunks 

That throb with living blood ! 

" No forest monarch yearly clad 

In mantle green or brown ; 
That unrecorded lives, and falls 

By hand of rustic clown — 
But kings who don the purple robe, 

And wear the jewelled crown. 

" Ah ! little recks the royal mind, 

Within his banquet-hall, 
While tapers shine and music breathes 

And beauty leads the ball, — 
He little recks the oaken plank 

Shall be his palace wall ! 

" Ah, little dreams the haughty peer, 

The while his falcon flies — 
Or on the blood-bedabbled turf 

The antlered quarry dies — 
That in his own ancestral park 

The narrow dwelling lies. 



[26 THE ELM TREE. 

" But haughty peer and mighty king 

One doom shall overwhelm ! 
The oaken cell 
Shall lodge him well 

Whose sceptre ruled a realm — 
While he who never knew a home 

Shall find it in the elm ! 

" The tattered, lean, dejected wretch, 
Who begs from door to door, 

And dies within the cressy ditch, 
Or on the barren moor, 

The friendly elm shall lodge and clothe 
That houseless man and poor ! 

" Yea, this recumbent rugged trunk, 
That lies so long and prone. 

With many a fallen acorn-cup. 
And mast and firry cone — 

This rugged trunk shall hold its share 
Of mortal flesh and bone ! 

" A miser hoarding heaps of gold, 
But pale with ague-fears — 

A wife lamenting love's decay, 
With secret cruel tears, 

Distilling bitter, bitter drops 
From sweets of former years — 

^' A man within whose gloomy mind 
Offence had darkly sunk. 

Who out of fierce Revenge's cup 
Hath madly, darkly drunk — 

Grief, Avarice, and Hate shall sleep 
Within this very trunk ! 



THE ELM TREE. 

" This massy trunk that lies along. 

And many more must fall — 

For the very knave 

Who digs the grave, 

The man who spreads the pall, 

And he who tolls the funeral bell, 

The elm shall have them all ! 

" The tall abounding elm that grows 
In hedge-rows up and down : 

In field and forest, copse and park, 
And in the peopled town. 

With colonies of noisy rooks 
That nestle on its crown. 

" And well the abounding elm may grow 

■ In field and hedge so rife. 
In forest, copse, and wooded park, 

And 'mid the city's strife. 

For, every hour that passes by 

Shall end a human life ! " 

The phantom ends : the shade is gone 
The sky is clear and bright ; 

On turf, and moss, and fallen tree, 
There glows a ruddy light ; 

And bounding through the golden fern 
The rabbit comes to bite. 

The thrush's mate beside her sits 

And pipes a merry lay ; 
The dove is in the evergreens ; 

And on the larch's spray 
The fly-bird flutters up and down 

To catch its tiny prey. 



127 



j^28 THE ELM TREE. 

The gentle hind and dappled fawn 

Are coming up the glade ; 
Each harmless furred and feathered thing 

Is glad, and not afraid — 
But on my saddened spirit still 

The shadow leaves a shade. 

A secret, vague, prophetic gloom, 
As though by certain mark 

I knew the fore-appointed tree, 
Within whose rugged bark 

This warm and living frame* shall find 
Its narrow house and dark. 

That mystic tree which breathed to me 

A sad and solemn sound. 
That sometimes murmured overhead- 

And sometimes underground ; 
Within that shady avenue 

Where lofty elms abound. 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 



A ROMANCE. 



A jolly place," said he, " in times of old, 

But something ails it now : the place is curst," 

Hart-Leap Well, by Wordsworth. 



PART I. 



Some dreams we have are nothing else but dreams, 
Unnatural and full of contradictions ; 
Yet others of our most romantic schemes 
Are somethinoj more than fictions. 



o 



It might be only on enchanted ground ; 
It might be merely by a thought's expansion ; 
But in the spirit, or the flesh, I found 
An old deserted mansion. 

A residence for woman, child, and man, 
A dwelling-place, — and yet no habitation ; 
A house, — but under some prodigious ban 
Of excommunication. 

Unhinged the iron gates half open hung. 
Jarred by the gusty gales of many winterSj 
That from its crumbled pedestal had flung 
One marble globe in splinters. 



130 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

No dog was at the threshold, great or small ; 
No pigeon on the roof — no household creature — 
No cat demurely dozing on the wall — 
Not one domestic feature. 

No human figure stirred, to go or come ; 
No face looked forth from shut or open casement : 
No chimney smoked — there was no sign of home 
From parapet to basement. 

With shattered panes the grassy court was starred ; 
The time-worn coping-stone had tumbled after ; 
And through the ragged roof the sky shone, barred 
With naked beam and rafter. 

O'er all there hung a shadow and a fear ; 
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
The place is haunted ! 

The flower grew wild and rankly as the weed, 
Roses with thistles struggled for espial, 
And vagrant plants of parasitic breed 
Had overgrown the dial. 

But, gay or gloomy, steadfast or infirm. 
No heart was there to heed the hour's duration : 
All times and tides were lost in one long term 
Of stagnant desolation. 

The wren had built within the porch, she found 
Its quiet loneliness so sure and thorough ; 
And on the lawn, — within its turfy mound, — 
The rabbit made his burrow. 



THE HAUNTED ROUSE. 131 

The rabbit wild and gray, that flitted through 

The shrubby clumps, and frisked, and sat, and vanished^ 

But leisurely and bold, as if he knew 

His enemy was banished. 

The wary crow, — the pheasant from the woods, — 
Lulled by the still and everlasting sameness, 
Close to the mansion, like domestic broods. 
Fed with a "shocking tameness." 

The coot was swimming in the reedy pond, 
Beside the water-hen, so soon affrighted ; 
And in the weedy moat the heron, fond 
Of solitude, alighted. 

The moping heron, motionless and stiff. 
That on a stone, as silently and stilly, 
Stood, an apparent sentinel, as if 
To guard the water-lily. 

No sound was heard, except, from far away. 
The ringmg of the whitwall's shrilly laughter, 
Or, now and then, the chatter of the jay, 
That Echo murmured after. 

But Echo never mocked the human tongue ; 
Some weighty crime, that Heaven could not pardon, 
A secret curse on that old building hung. 
And its deserted garden. 

The beds were all untouched by hand or tool ; 
No footstep marked the damp and mossy gravel, 
Each walk as green as is the mantled pool 
For want of human travel. 



[32 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

The vine unpruned, and the neglected peach, 
Prooped from the wall with which they used to grapple 
And on the cankered tree, in easy reach, 
Rotted the golden apple. 

But awfully the truant shunned the ground, 
The vagrant kept aloof, and daring poacher : 
In spite of gaps that through the fences round 
Invited the encroacher. 

For over all there hung a cloud of fear ; 
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
The place is haunted ! 

The pear and quince lay squandered on the grass ; 
The mould was purple with unheeded showers 
Of bloomy plums — a wilderness it was 
Of fruits, and weeds, and flowers ! 

The marigold amidst the nettles blew, 

The gourd embraced the rose-bush in its ramble, 

The thistle and the stock together grew. 

The hollyhock and bramble. 

The bear-bine with the lilac interlaced ; 

The sturdy burdock choked its slender neighbor, 

The spicy pink. All tokens were efiaced 

Of human care and labor. 

The very yew formality had trained 

To such a rigid pyramidal stature. 

For want of trimming had almost regained 

The raggedness of nature. 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 133 

Tlie fountain was a-dry — neglect and time 
Had marred the work of artisan and mason, 
And efts and croaking frogs, begot of slime, 
Sprawled in the ruined basin. 

The statue, fallen from its marble base. 
Amidst the refuse leaves, and herbage rotten, 
Lay like the idol of some bygone race, 
Its name and rites forgotten. 

On every side the aspect was the same, 
All ruined, desolate, forlorn and savage : 
No hand or foot within the precinct came 
To rectify or ravage. 

For over all there hung a cloud of fear ; 
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
The place is haunted ! 



PART II. 

0, very gloomy is the house of woe, 
Where tears are falling while the bell is knellingj 
With all the dark solemnities which show 
That Death is in the dwelling ! 

0, very, very dreary is the room 
Where love, domestic love, no longer nestles, 
But, smitten by the common stroke of doom, 
The corpse lies on the trestles ! 



j^34 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

But house of woe, and hearse, and sable pall^ 
The narrow home of the departed mortal, 
Ne'er looked so gloomy as that ghostly hall, 
With its deserted portal ! 

The centipede along the threshold crept, 
The cobweb hung across in mazy tangle, 
And in its winding-sheet the maggot slept, 
At every nook and angle. 

The keyhole lodged the earwig and her brood 
The emmets of the steps had old possession, 
And marched in search of their diurnal food 
In undisturbed procession. 

As undisturbed as the prehensile cell 
Of moth or maggot, or the spider's tissue ; 
For never foot upon that threshold fell, 
To enter or to issue. 

O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear ; 
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
The place is haunted ! 

Howbeit, the door I pushed — or so I dreamed 
Which slowly, slowly gaped, — the hinges creaking 
With such a rusty eloquence, it seemed 
That Time himself was speaking. 

But Time was dumb within that mansion old. 
Or left his tale to the heraldic banners 
That hung from the corroded walls, and told 
Of former men and manners. 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 135 

Those tattered flags, that with the opened door 
Seemed the old wave of battle to remember. 
While fallen fragments danced upon the floor 
Like dead leaves in December. 

The startled bats flew out — bird after bird — 
The screech-owl overhead began to flutter, 
And seemed to mock the cry that she had heard 
Some dying victim utter ! 

A shriek that echoed from the joisted roof, 
And up the stair, and further still and further, 
Till in some rino-ino; chamber far aloof 
It ceased its tale of murther ! 

Meanwhile the rusty armor rattled round. 
The banner shuddered, and the ragged streamer; 
All things the horrid tenor of the sound 
Acknowledo;ed with a tremor. 



O' 



The antlers, where the helmet hung and belt, 
Stirred as the tempest stirs the forest branches, 
Or as the stag had trembled when he felt 
The bloodhound at his haunches. 

The window jingled in its crumbled frame, 
And through its many gaps of destitution 
Dolorous moans and hollow sighings came, 
Like those of dissolution. 

The wood-louse dropped, and rolled into a ball; 
Touched by some impulse occult or mechanic ; 
And nameless beetles ran along the wall 
Li universal panic. 



[26 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

The subtle spider, that from overhead 
Hung like a spy on human guilt and error, 
Suddenly turned, and up its slender thread 
Ran with a nimble terror. 

The very stains and fractures on the wall, 
Assuming features solemn and terrific, 
Hinted some tragedy of that old hall. 
Locked up in hieroglyphic. 

Some tale that might, perchance, have solved the doubt, 
Wherefore amongst those flags so dull and livid 
The banner of the Bloody Hand shone out. 
So ominously vivid. 

Some key to that inscrutable appeal. 
Which made the very frame of Nature quiver, 
And every thrilling nerve and fibre feel 
So ague-like a shiver. 

For over all there hung a cloud of fear ; 
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear. 
The place is haunted ! 

If but a rat had lingered in the house, 
To lure the thought into a social channel ! 
But not a rat remained, or tiny mouse, 
To squeak behind the panel. 

Huge drops rolled down the walls, as if they wept ; 
And where the cricket used to chirp so shrilly 
The toad was squatting, and the lizard crept 
On that damp hearth and chilly. 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 187 

For years no cheerful blaze had sparkled there, 
Or glanced on coat of buff or knightlj metal ; 
The slug was crawling on the vacant chair, — 
The snail upon the settle. 

The floor was redolent of mould and must, 
The fungus in the rotten seams had qi^ickened ; 
While on the oaken table coats of dust 
Perennially had thickened. 

No mark of leathern jack or metal cann, 
No cup — no horn — no hospitable token, — 
All social ties between that board and man 
Had long ago been broken. 

There was so foul a rumor in the air, 
The shadow of a presence so atrocious. 
No human creature could have feasted there, 
Even the most ferocious. 

For over all there hung a cloud of fear ; 
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted. 
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
The place is haunted ! 



PART m. 

'T is hard for human actions to account, 
Whether from reason or from impulse only — 
But some internal prompting bade me mount 
The gloomy stairs and lonely. 



l3f? THE HALNTBD HOJSE. 

Those gloomy stairs, so dark, and damp, and cold, 
With odors as from bones and relics carnal, 
Deprived of rite, and consecrated mould. 
The chapel vault, or charnel. 

Those dreary stairs, where with the sounding stress 
Of every step so many echoes blended. 
The mind, with dark misgivings, feared to guess 
How many feet ascended. 

The tempest with its spoils had drifted in, 
Till each unwholesome stone was darkly spotted, 
As thickly as the leopard's dappled skin, 
With leaves that rankly rotted. 

The air was thick — and in the upper gloom 

The bat — or something in its shape — was winging ; 

And on the Avail, as chilly as a tomb. 

The death's-head moth was clino-ino:. 

That mystic moth, which, with a sense profound 
Of all unlioly presence, augurs truly ; 
And with a grim significance flits round 
The taper burning bluely. 

Such omens in the place there seemed to be, 
At every crooked turn, or on the landing, 
The straining eyeball was prepared to see 
Some apparition standing. 

For over all there hung a cloud of fear ; 
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted. 
And said^ as plain as whisper in the ear, 
The place is haunted ! 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 139 

Yet no portentous sliape the sight amazed ; 
Each object plain, and tangible, and valid ; 
But from their tarnished frames dark figures gazed, 
And faces spectre-pallid. 

Not merely with the mimic life that lies 

Within the compass of art's simulation ; 

Their souls were looking through their painted eyes 

With awful speculation. 

On every lip a speechless horror dwelt ; 
On every brow the burthen of affliction ; 
The old ancestral spirits knew and felt 
The house's malediction. 

Such earnest woe their features overcast, 

They might have stirred, or sighed, or wept, or spoken, 

But, save the hollow moaning of the blast, 

The stillness was unbroken. 

No other sound or stir of life was there, 
Except my steps in solitary clamber. 
From flight to flight, from humid stair to stair. 
From chamber into chamber. 

Deserted rooms of luxury and state, 
That old magnificence had richly famished 
With pictures, cabinets of ancient date, 
And carvings gilt and burnished. , 

Rich hangings, storied by the needle's ai-t. 
With Scripture history, or classic fable ; 
But all had faded, save one ragged part. 
Where Cain was slaying Abel. 



140 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

The silent waste of mildew and the moth 
Had marred the tissue with a partial ravage ; 
But undccajing frowned upon the cloth 
Each feature stern and savage. 

The sky was pale ; the cloud a thing of doubt ; 
Some hues were fresh, and some decayed and duller ; 
But still the Bloody Hand shone strangely out 
With vehemence of color ! 

The Bloody Hand that with a lurid stam 
Shone on the dusty floor, a dismal token, 
Projected from the casement's painted pane, 
Where all beside was broken. 

The Bloody Hand significant of crime, 
That, glaring on the old heraldic banner. 
Had kept its crimson unimpaired by time, 
In such a wondrous manner ! 

O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear ; 
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
And said, as plain as whisper in the car. 
The place is haunted ! 

The death-watch ticked behind the panelled oak, 
Inexplicable tremors shook the arras, 
And echoes strange and mystical awoke, 
The fancy to embarrass. 

Prophetic hints that filled the soul with dread. 
But tlirough one gloomy entrance pointing mostly, 
The while some secret inspiration said, 
That chamber is the ghostly ! 



THE HAUNTED HO U 313. 141 

Across the door no gossamer festoon 

Swung pendulous — no web — no duiiij fringes, 

No silkj chrysalis or white cocoon 

About its nooks and hinges. 

The spider shunned the interdicted roon>. 
The moth, the beetle, and the fly were k nished 
And where the sunbeam fell athwart the 'loom 
The very midge had vanished. 

One lonely ray that glanced upon a bed, 
As if with awful aim direct and certain, 
To show the Bloody Hand in burning reii 
Embroidered on the curtain. 

And yet no gory stain was on tlie quilt — 
The pillow in its place had slowly rotted; 
The floor alone retained the trace of guilt. 
Those boards obscurely spotted. 

Obscurely spotted to the door, and thence 
With mazy doubles to the grated casement — 
0, what a tale they told of fear intense, 
Of horror and amazement ! 

What human creature in the dead of night 
Had coursed like hunted hare that cruel distance ] 
Had sought the door, the window, in his flight, 
Strivino; for dear existence ? 

What shrieking spirit in that bloody room 
Its mortal frame had violently quitted ? — 
Across the sunbeam, with a sudden gloom, 
A ghostly shadow flitted. 



142 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

Across the sunbeam, and along the wall, 
But painted on the air so very dimlj, 
It hardly veiled the tapestry at all, 
Or portrait frowning grimly. 

O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear ; 
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
The place is haunted ! 



GUIDO AND MARINA. 

A DRAMATIC SKETCH. 

[GuiDO, having given himself up to the pernicious study of magic and astrology, 
casts his nativity, and resolves that at a certain hour of a certain day he is to Cle. 
Makina, to wean him from this fatal delusion, which hath gradually wasted him 
away, even to the verge of death, advances the hour-hand of the clock. He is su|)- 
posed to be seated beside her in the garden of his palace at Venice.] 

Guido. Clasp me again ! My soul is very sad ; ^ 

And hold thy lips in readiness near mine, 
Lest I die suddenly. Clasp me again ! 
'Tis such a gloomy day ! 

Mar. N^y? sweet, it shines. 

Guido. Nay, then, these mortal clouds are in mine eyes. 
Clasp me again ! — ay, with thy fondest force, 
Give me one last embrace. 

Mar. Love, I do clasp thee ! 

Guido. Then closer — closer— for I feel thee not ; 
Unless thou art this pain around my heart. 
Thy lips at such a time should never leave me. 

Mar. What pain — what time, love? Art thou ill? Alas! 
I see it in thy cheek. Come, let me nurse thee. 
Here, rest upon my heart. 

Guido. . Stay, stay, Marina. 

Look ! — when I raise my hand against the sun. 
Is it red with bjood ? 

Mar. Alas ! my love, what wilt thou ? 



144 GUIDO AND. MAEINA. 

Thy hand is red — and so is mine — all hands 
Show thus against the sun. 

Giiido. All living men's, 

Marina, but not mine. Hast never heard 
How death first seizes on the feet and hands, 
And thence goes freezing to the very heart ? 

'Mar. Yea, love I know it ; but what then ? — the hand 
I hold, is glowing. 

Giddo. But my eyes ! — my eyes ! — 

Look there, Marina — there is death's own sign. 
I«have seen a corpse, 

E'en when its clay was cold, would still have seemed 
^Alive, but for the eyes — such deadly eyes ! 
So dull and dim ! Marina, look in mine ! 

Mar. Ay, they are dull. No, no — not dull, but bright : 
I see myself within them. Now, dear love. 
Discard these horrid fears that make me weep. 

Guido. Marina, Marina — where thy image lies. 
There must be brightness — or perchance they glance 
And glimmer like the lamp before it dies. 
Oh, do not vex my soul with hopes impossible ! 
My hours are ending. iciock strikes. 

Mar. Nay, they shall not ! Hark ! 

The hour — four — five — hark ! — six ! — the very time ! 
And, lo 1 thou art alive ! My love — dear love — 
Now cast this cruel phantasm from thy brain — 
This wilful, wild delusion — cast it off! 
The hour is come — and ffo?ie ! What ! not a word ! 
What, not a smile, even, that thou livest for' me ! 
Come, laugh and clap your hands as I do — come. 
Or kneel with me, and thank th' eternal GoH 
For this blest passover ! Still sad ! still mute ! — 
Oh, why art thou not glad, as I am glad. 



GUIDO AND MARINA. 145 

That death forbears thee ? Nay, hath all my love 
Been spent in vain, that thou art sick of life ? 

Guido. Marina, I am no more attached to death 
Than Fate hath doomed me. I am his elect, 
That even now forestalls thy little light, 
And steals with cold infringement on my breath : 
Already he bedims my spiritual lamp, 
Not yet his due — not yet — quite yet, though Time, 
Perchance, to warn me, speaks before his wont : 
Some minutes' space my blood has still to flow — 
Some scanty breath is left me still to spend 
In very bitter sighs. 

But there's a point, true measured by my pulse, , 

Beyond or short of which it may not live 
By one poor throb. Marina, it is near. 

Mar. Oh, God of heaven ! 

Guido. Ay, it is very near. 

Therefore, cling now to me, and say farewell 
While I can answer it. * Marina, speak ! 
Why tear thine helpless hair ? it will not save 
Thy heart from breaking, nor pluck out the thought 
That stings thy brain. Oh, surely thou hast known 
This truth too long to look so like Despair ? 

Mar. 0, no, no, no !— a hope — a little hope — 
I had erewhile — but I have heard its knell. 
Oh, would my life w^ere measured out with thine — 
All my years numbered — all my days, my hours, 
My utmost minutes, all summed up with thine ! 

Guido. Marina — 

Mar. Let me weep — no, let me kneel 

To God — but rather thee — to spare this end 
That is so wilful. Oh, for pity's sake ! 
Pluck back thy precious spirit from these clouds 

10 



■y^Q GUIDO AND MARINA. 

That smother it with death. Oh ! turn from death, 
And do not woo it with such dark resolve. 
To make me widowed. 

Guido. I have lived my term. 

j^f^j, ^Q — not thy term— not the natural term 
Of one so young. Oh ! thou hast spent thy years 
In sinful waste upon unholy — 

Guido. Hush ! 

Marina. 

Mar. Nay, I must. Oh ! cursed lore, 
That hath supplied this spell against thy life. 
Unholy learning — devilish and dark — 
Study I — God ! God ! — how can thy stars 
Be bright with such black knowledge ? Oh, that men 
Should ask more light of them than guides their steps 
At evening; to love 1 

Guido. Hush, hush, oh hush ! 

Thy words have pained me in the midst of pain. 
True, if I had not read, I should not die ; 
For, if I had not read, I had not been. 
All our acts of life are pre-ordained. 
And each pre-acted, in our several spheres, 
By ghostly duplicates. They sway our deeds 
By their performance. What if mine hath been 
To be a prophet and foreknow my doom ? 
If I had closed my eyes, the thunder then 
Had roared it in my ears ; my own mute brain 
Had told it with a tongue. What must be, must. 
Therefore I knew when my full time would fall j 
And now — to save thy widowhood of tears — 
To spare' the very breaking of thy heart, 
I may not gain even a brief hour's reprieve ! 
What seest thou yonder ? 



GUIDO AND MARINA. 147 

Mar. Where ? — a tree — the sun 

Sinkmo; behind a tree. 

Guido. It is no tree, 

Marina, but a shape — the awful shape 
That comes to claim me. Seest thou not his shade 
Darken before his steps ? Ah me ! how cold 
It comes against my feet ! Cold, icy cold ! 
And blacker than a pall. 

Mar. My love ! 

Guido. Oh, heaven 

And earth, where are ye ? Marina — iGmvodUs. 

Mar. I am here ! 

What wilt thou? dost thou speak ? — Methought I heard thee 
Just whispering. He is dead ! — God ! he's dead ! 



STANZAS TO TOM WOODGATE, 

OF HASTINGS. 



Tom ! — are you still within this land 
Of Jivers — still on Hastings' sand. 

Or roaming on the waves ; 
Or has some billow o'er you rolled, 
Jealous that e<arth should lap so bold 

A seaman in her graves ? 

On land the rush-light lives of men 
Go out but slowly ; nine in ten, 

By tedious long decline — 
Not so the jolly sailor sinks, 
Who founders in the wave, and drinks 

The apoplectic brine ! 

Ay, while I write, mayhap your head 
Is sleeping on an oyster-bed — 

I hope 'tis far from trutli ! — 
With periwinkle eyes ; — your bone 
Beset with mussels, not your own, 

And corals at your tooth ! 



STANZAS TO TOM WOODGATB. i^O 

Still does the Chance pursue the chance 
The main aifords— the Aidant dance 

In safety on the tide ? 
Still flies that sign of mj good--\Yill 
A little hunting thing — but still 

To thee a flag of pride ? 

Does that hard, honest hand now clasp 
The tiller in its careful grasp — 

With every summer breeze 
When ladies sail, in lady-fear — 
Or, tus; the oar, a g;ondolier 

On smooth Macadam seas ? 

Or are you where the flounders keep, 
Some dozen briny fathoms deep, 

Where sand and shells abound — 
With some old Triton on your chest, 
And twelve grave .mermen for a 'quest, 

To find that you are— drowned ? 

Swift is the wave, and apt to bring 
A sudden doom — perchance I sing 

A mere funereal strain ; 
You have endured the utter strife — 
And are — the same in death or life, 

A good man in the main ! 

Oh, no — I hope the old brown eye 
Still watches ebb, and flood, and sky; 

That still the old brown shoes 
Are sucking brine up — pumps indeed ! 
Your tooth still full of ocean weed, 

Or Indian — which you choose. 



150 STANZAS TO TOM WOODGATE. 

I like you, Tom ! and in these lays 
Give honest worth its honest praise, 

No puiF at honor's cost; 
For though you met these words of mine; 
All letter-learning was a line 

You, somehow^, never crossed ! 

Mayhap we ne'er shall meet again, 
Except on that Pacific main, 

Beyond this planet's brink ; 
Yet as we erst have braved the weather, 
Still may we float awhile together. 

As comrades on this ink ! 

Many a scudding gale we've had 
Together, and, my gallant lad, 

Some perils w^e have passed ; 
When huge and black the wave careered, 
And oft the giant surge appeared 

The master of our mast : — 

'Twas thy example taught me how 
To climb the billow's hoary brow, 

Or cleave the raging heap — 
To bound along the ocean wild. 
With danger only as a child, 

The waters rocked to sleep. 



Oh, who can tell that brave delio;ht, 1 

To see the hissing wave in might, 

Come rampant like a snake ! 
To leap his horrid crest, and feast 
One's eyes upon the briny beast, 

Left couchant in the wake ! 



STANZAS TO TOM WOODGATE. 1^'^ 

The simple shepherd's love is still 
To bask upon a sunn/ hill, 

The herdsman roams the vale — 
With both their fancies I agree ; 
Be mine the swelling, scooping sea, 

That is both hill and dale 1 

1 yearn for that brisk spray— I yearn 
To feel the wave from stem to stern 

Uplift the plunging keel; 
That merry step we used to dance 
On board the Aidant or the Chance, 

The ocean ' toe and heel.' 

I long to feel the steady gale 

That fills the broad distended sail — 

Tlie seas on either hand ! V 

My thought, like any hollow shell, 
Keeps mocking at my ear the swell 

Of waves against the land. 

It is no fable — that old strain 

Of syrens ! — so the witching main 

Is singing — and I sigh ! 
My heart is all at once inclined 
To seaward — and I seem to find 

The waters in my eye ! 

Methinks I see the shining beach ; 
The merry waves, each after each, 

Rebounding o'er the flints ; 
I spy the grim preventive spy ! 
The jolly boatmen standing nigh ! 

The maids in morning chintz I 



15- STANZAS TO TOM VfOODGATE. 

And there thej float — the sailing craft ! 
The sail is up - the wind abaft — 

The ballast trim and neat. 
Alas ! "tis all a dream — a lie I 
A printer's imp is standing by, 

To haul my mizzen sheet ! 

My tiller dwindles to a pen — 
My craft is that of bookish men — 

My sale — let Longman tell ! 
Adieu, the wave, the wind, the spray ! 
Men — maidens — chintzes — fade away I 

Tom Woodgate, fare thee well ! 



THE MARY, 

A SEA-SIDE SKETCH. 



Lov'sT thoii not, Alice, with the early tide 
To see the hardy Fisher hoist his mast. 

And stretch his sail towards the ocean wide, — 
Like God's own beadsman going forth to cast 

His net into the deep, which doth provide 
Enormous bounties, hidden in its vast 

Bosom like 'Charity's, for all who seek 

And take its gracious boon thankful and meek ? 

The sea is bright with morning, — but the dark 
Seems still to lino;er on his broad black sail, 

For it is early hoisted, like a mark 

For the low sun to shoot at with his pale 

And level beams : — All round the shadowy bark 
The green wave glimmers, and the gentle gale 

Swells in her canvas, till the waters show 

The keel's new speed, and whiten at the bow. 

Then look abaft — (for thou canst understand 
That phrase) — and there he sitteth at the stern, 

Grasping the tiller in his broad brown hand, 
The hardy Fisherman. Thou may'st discern 



154 THE MARY. 

Ten fathoms off the wrinkles in the tann'd 

And honest countenance that he will turn 
To look upon us, with a quiet gaze — 
As we are passing on our several ways. 

So, some ten days ago, on such a morn. 
The Mary, like a seamew, sought her spoil 

Amongst the finny race : 't was when the corn 
Woo'd the sharp sickle, and the golden toil 

Summon' d all rustic hands to fill the horn 
Of Ceres to the brim, that brave turmoil 

Was at the prime, and Woodgate went to reap 

His harvest too, upon the broad blue deep. 

His mast was up, his anchor heaved aboard, 
His mainsail stretching in the first gray gleams 

Of morning, for the wind. Ben's eye was stored 
With fishes — fishes swam in all his dreams, 

And all the goodly east seem'd but a hoard 
Of silvery fishes, that in shoals and streams 

Groped into the deep dusk that fill'd the sky, 

For him to catch in meshes of his eye. 

For Ben had the true sailor's sanguine heart, 
And saw the future with a boy's brave thought, 

No doubts, nor faint misgivings had a part 
In his bright visions — ay, before he caught 

His fish, he sold them in the scaly mart. 

And summ'd the net proceeds. This should have 
brought 

Despair upon him when his hopes were foil'd. 

But though one crop was marr'd, again he toil'd 

And sow'd his seed afresh.— Many foul blights 
Perish'd his hard-won gains— yet he had plann'd 



THE MARY. 155 

No scliemes of too extravagant delights — 
No goodly houses on the Goodwin sand — 

But a small, humble home, and loving nights, 
Such as his honest heart and earnest hand 

Might fairly purchase. Where these hopes too airy ? 
Such as they were, they rested on thee, Mary. 

She was the prize of many a toilsome year. 
And hard-won wages, on the perilous sea — 

Of savings ever since the shipboy's tear 

Was shed for home, that lay beyond the lee ; — 

She was purveyor for his other dear 
Mary, and for the infant yet to be 

Fruit of their married loves. These made him dote 

Upon the homely beauties of his boat. 

Whose pitch black hull rolFd darkly on the wave 

No gayer than one single stripe of blue 
Could make her swarthy sides. She seem'd a slave, 

A negro among boats — that only knew 
Hardship and rugged toil — no pennons brave 

Elaunted upon the mast — but oft a few 
Dark dripping jackets flutter' d to the air, 
Ensigns of hardihood and toilsome carCo 

And when she ventured for the deep, she spread 

A tawny sail against the sunbright sky, 
Dark as a cloud that journeys overhead — 

But then those tawny wings were stretch'd to fly 
Across the wide sea desert for the bread 

Of babes and mothers — many an anxious eye 
Dwelt on her course, and many a fervent pray'r 
Invoked the Heavens to protect and spare. 



156 THE MART. 

Where is she now? The secrets of the deep " 

Are dark and hidden from the human ken ; 

Only the sea-bird saw the surges sweep 
Over the bark of the devoted Ben, — 

Meanwhile a widow sobs and orphans weep, 
And sighs are heard from weather-beaten men, 

Dark, sunburnt men, uncouth, and rude, and hairy, 

While loungers idly ask, "Where is the Mary?" 



MISCELLAl^EOUS POEMS. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



FAIR INES. 



SAW ve not fair Ines 1 

She 's gone into the west, 

To dazzle ^yhen the sun is down, 

And rob the world of rest : 

She took our daylight with her, 

The smiles that we love best, 

With morning blushes on her cheelr, 

And pearls upon her breast. 

turn again, fair Ines, 
Before the fall of night, 

For fear the moon should shine alone, 

And stars unrivalled bright ; 

And blessed will the lover be 

That walks beneath their light, 

And breathes the love against thj cheek 

1 dare not even write ! 

Would I had been, fair Ines, 
That gallant cavalier, 
Who rode so gajlj by thy side, 
And whispered thee so near ! — 



160 FAIR INES. 



Were there no bonny dames at home, 
Or no true lovers here, 
That he should cross the seas to win 
The dearest of the dear ? 

I saw thee, lovely Ines, 

Descend along the shore, 

With bands of noble gentlemen, 

And banners waved before : 

And gentle youth and maidens gay, 

And snowy plumes they wore ; — 

It would have been a beauteous dream, 

— If it had been no more I 

Alas, alas ! fair Ines, 

She went away with song, 

With music waiting on her steps, 

And shoutino's of the thronai; ; 

But some were sad, and felt no mirth, 

But only music's wrong. 

In sounds that sang farewell, farewell, 

To her you 'vc loved so long. 

Farewell, farewell, fair Ines ! 

That vessel never bore 

So fair a lady on its deck, 

Nor danced so light before, — 

Alas for pleasure on the sea, 

And sorrow on the shore! 

The smile that blest one lover's heart 

Has broken many more 



' 



TO HOPE. 161 



TO HOPE. 



Oh ! take, joung seraph, take thy harp, 

And play to me so cheerily ; 
For grief is dark, and care is sharp, 

And life wears on so wearily. 
Oh ! take thy harp ! 
Oh ! sing as thou wert wont to do, 

When, all youth's sunny season long, 

I sat and listen'd to thy song, 
And yet 'twas ever, ever new, 
Witli magic in its heaven-tuned string,^ — 

The future bliss thy constant theme. 
Oh ! then each little woe took wing 

Away, like phantoms of a dream ; 
As if each sound 
That fluttered round 

Had floated over Lethe's stream ! 

By all those bright and happy hours 

We spent in life's sweet eastern bow'rs. 

Where thou wouldst sit and smile, and show, 

Ere buds were come, where flowers would grow, 

And oft anticipate the rise 

Of life's warm sun that scaled the skies ; 

By many a story of love and glory, 

And friendships promised oft to me ; 

By all the faith I lent to thee, — 

Oh ! take, young seraph, take thy harp, 

And play to me so cheerily ; 
For grief is dark, and care is sharp. 

And life wenrs on so wearily. 

Oh ! take thy harp ! 
11 



162 TO HOPE. 

Perchance the strings will sound less clear, 

That long have lain neglected by 
In sorrow's misty atmosphere ; 
It ne'er may speak as it has spoken 

Such joyous notes so brisk and high ; 
But are its golden chords all broken ? 
Are there not some, though weak and low, 
To play a lullaby to woe ? 
But thou canst sing of love no more, 

For Celia show'd that dream was vain ; 
And many a fancied bliss is o'er, 

That comes not e'en in dreams again. 
Alas ! alas ! 
How pleasures pass, 
And leave thee now no subject, save 
The peace and bliss beyond the grave ! 
Then be thy flight among the skies : 

Take, then, oh ! take the skylark's wing, 
And leave dull earth, and heavenward rise 

O'er all its tearful clouds, and sing 
On skylark's wing ! 

Another life-spring there adorns 

Another youth, without the dread 
Of cruel care, whose crown of thorns 

Is here for manhood's aching head. 
Oh ! there are realms of welcome day, 
A world where tears are wiped away ! 
Then be thy flight among the skies : 

Take, then, oh ! take the skylark's wing, 
And leave dull earth, and heavenward rise 

O'er all its tearful clouds, and sing 
On skylark's wing ! 

July, 1821. 



SONG. 



SONG. 

TO MY WIFE. 



163 



Those eyes that were so bright, love, 

Have now a dimmer shine, — 
But all they've lost in light, love, 

Was what they gave to mine : 
But still those orbs reflect, love, 

The beams of former hours,— 
That ripen"d all my joys, my love, 

And tinted all my flowers! 

Those locks were brown to see, love, 

That now are turned so gray,— 
But the years were spent with me, love, 

That stole their hue away. 
Thy locks no longer share, love. 

The golden glow of noon, — 
But I^ve seen the world look fair, my love, 

When silvered by the moon ! 

That brow was smooth and fair, love, 

That looks so shaded now,— 
But for me it bore the care, love. 

That spoiled a bonny brow. 
And though no longer there, love, 

The gloss it had of yore,— 
Still Memory looks and dotes, my love, 

Where Hope admired before ! 



164 TO CELIA. 



TO CELIA. 



Old Fiction says that Love hath eyes, 
Yet sees, unhappy boy ! with none ; 

Bhnd as the night ! But Fiction lies, 
For Love doth always see with one. 

To one our graces all unveil, 

To one our flaws are all exposed ; 

But when with tenderness we hail. 

He smiles, and keeps the critic closed. 

But when he 's scorned, abused, estranged, 

He opes the eye of evil ken, 
And all his angel friends are changed 

To demons — and are hated then ! 

Yet once it happ'd, that, semi-blind, 
He met thee, on a summer day, 

And took thee for his mother kind, 
And frowned as he was pushed away. 

But still he saw thee shine the same, 
Though be had ope'd his evil eye, 

And found that nothing but her shame, 
Was left to know his mother by ! 

And ever since that morning sun 
He thinks of thee ; and blesses Fate 

That he can look with both on one 
Who hath no ugliness to hate. 



THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER. 165 



THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER. 

Summer is gone on swallows' wings, 
And earth has buried all her flowers . 
No more the lark, the linnet sings, 
But silence sits in fiided bowers. 
There is a shadow on the plain 
Of Winter ere he comes again, — 
There is in woods a solemn sound 
Of hollow warnings whispered round, 
As Echo in her deep recess 
For once had turned a prophetess. 
Shuddering Autumn stops to list, 
And breathes his fear in sudden sighs, 
With clouded face, and hazel eyes 
That quench themselves, and hide in mist. 

Yes, Summer 's gone like pageant bright 
Its glorious days of golden light 
Are gone — the mimic suns that quive*', 
Then melt in Time's dark-flowing river. 
Gone the sweetly-scented breeze 
That spoke in music to the trees ; 
Gone for damp and chilly breath, 
As if fresh blown o'er marble seas, 
Or newly from the lungs of Death. — 
Gone its virgin roses' blushes, 
Warm as when Aurora rushes 
Freshly from the god's embrace, 
With all her shame upon her face. 
Old Time hath laid them in the mould ; 
Sure he is blind as well as old, 
Whose hand relentless never spares 
Young cheeks so beauty-bright as theirs ! 



166 THE DEPAKTUKJK OF SUMMER. 

Gone are the flame-eyed lovers now 
From where so blushing-blest thej tarried 
Under the hawthorn's blossom-bough, 
Gone ; for Day and Night are married. 
All the light of love is fled : — 
Alas ! that negro breasts should hide 
The lips that were so rosy red, 
At morning and at even-tide ! 

Delightful Summer ! then adieu 
Till thou shalt visit us anew : 
But who without regretful sigh 
Can say adieu, and see thee fly? 
Not he that e'er hath felt thy power, 
His joy expanding like a flower 
That Cometh after rain and snow, 
Looks up at heaven, and learns to glow : — 
Not he that fled from Babel-strife 
To the green Sabbath-land of life. 
To dodge dull Care 'mid clustered trees, 
And cool his forehead in the breeze, — 
Whose spirit, weary-worn perchance. 
Shook from, its wings a weight of grief, 
And perched upon an aspen-leaf. 
For every breath to make it dance. 

Farewell ! — on wings of sombre stain, 
That blacken in the last blue skies. 
Thou fly'st ; but thou wilt come again 
On the gay wings of butterflies. 
Spring at thy approach will sprout 
Her new Corinthian beauties out, 
Leaf-woven homes, where twitter-words 
Will grow to songs, and eggs to birds ; 



THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER. 167 

Ambitious buds shall swell to flowers, 

And April smiles to sunny hours. 

Bright days shall be, and gentle nights 

Full of soft breath and echo-lights. 

As if the god of sun-time kept 

His eyes half-open while he slept. 

Roses shall be where roses were, 

Not shadows, but reality ; 

As if they never perished there, 

But slept in immortality : 

Nature shall thrill with new delight, 

And Time's relumined river run 

Warm as young blood, and dazzling bright 

As if its source were in the sun ! 

But say, hath Winter then no charms ? 
Is there no joy, no gladness, warms 
His aged heart ] no happy wiles 
To cheat the hoary one to smiles 7 
Onward he comes — the cruel North 
Pours his furious whirlwind forth 
Before him — and we breathe the breath 
Of famished bears that howl to death. 
Onward he comes from rocks that blanch 
O'er solid streams that never flow ; 
His tears all ice, his locks all snow, 
Just crept from some huge avalanche — 
A thing half-breathing and half- warm, 
As if one spark began to glow 
Within some statue's marble form. 
Or pilgrim stiffened in the storm. 
! will not Mirth's light arrows fail 
To pierce that frozen coat of mail 7 



168 THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER. 

! will not joy but strive in vain 
To light up those glazed eyes again 7 

No ! take him in, and blaze the oak, 
And pour the wine, and warm the ale ; 
His sides shall shake to many a joke, 
His tongue shall thaw in many a tale, 
His eyes grow bright, his heart be gay, 
And even his palsy charmed away. 
What heeds he then the boisterous shout 
Of angry winds that scold without, 
Like shrewish wives at tavern door 7 
What heeds he then the wild uproar 
Of billows bursting on the shore 7 
In dashing waves, in howling breeze, 
There is a music that can charm him ; 
When safe, and sheltered, and at ease, 
He hears the storm that cannot harm him. 

But hark ! those shouts ! that sudden din 
Of little hearts that laugh within. 
! take him where the youngsters play, 
And he will grow as young as they ! 
They come ! they come ! each blue-eyed Sport, 
The Twelfth-Nio'ht Kino; and all his court — 
'T is Mirth fresh croAvned with mistletoe ! 
Music with her merry fiddles, 
Joy " on light fantastic toe," 
Wit with all his jests and riddles, 
Singing and dancing as they go. 
And Love, young Love, among the rest, 
A welcome — nor unbidden guest. 

But still for Summer dost thou grieve 7 
Then read our poets — they shall weave 



THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER. 1Q[> 

A garden of green fancies still, 

Where thy wish may rove at will. 

They have kept for after treats 

The essences of summer sweets, 

And echoes of its songs that wind 

In endless music through the mind : - 

They have stamped in visible traces 

The "thoughts that breathe," in words that shine — 

The flights of soul in sunny places — 

To greet and company with thine. 

These shall wing thee on to flowers — 

The past or future that shall seem 

All the brighter in thy dream 

For blowing in such desert hours. 

The summer never shines so bright 

As thought of in a winter's nio;ht ; 

And the sweetest, loveliest rose 

Is in the bud before it blows ; 

The dear one of the lover's heart 

Is painted to his longing eyes, 

In charms she ne'er can realize — 

But when she turns again to part. 

Dream thou then, and bind thy brow 

With wreath of fancy roses now, 

And drink of summer in the cup 

Where the Muse hath mixed it up ; 

The " dance, and song, and sun-burnt mirth," 

With the warm nectar of the earth : 

Drink ! 't will glow in every vein. 

And thou shalt dream the A^dnter through : 

Then waken to the sun again, 

And find thy summer vision true ! 



IIQ ODE: AUTUMN. 

ODE: 

AUTUMN. 

I SAW old Autumn in the misty morn 
Stand shadowless like silence, listening 
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing 
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn, 
Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn ; — 
Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright 
With tangled gossamer that fell by night, 
Pearling his coronet of golden corn. 

Where are the songs of Summer 'I — With the sun, 

Oping the dusky eyelids of the South, 

Till shade and silence waken up as one, 

And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth. 

Where are the merry birds 7 — Away, away. 

On panting wings through the inclement skies, 

Lest owls should prey 

Undazzled at noon-day, 
And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes. 
Where are the blooms of Summer '? — In the west, 
Blushing their last to the last sunny hours, 
When the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest 
Like tearful Proserpine, snatched from her flowers 

To a most gloomy breast. 
Where is the pride of Summer, — the green prime, — 
The many, many leaves all twinkling 7 — Three 
On the mossed elm ; three on the naked lime 
Trembling, — and one upon the old oak tree ! 

Where is the Dryad's immortality ? — 
Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew. 
Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through 
In the smooth holly's green eternity. 



I 



ODE : AUTUMN. 1 \ 

The squirrel gloats on his accomplished hoard, 

The ants have brimmed their garners with ripe graii^ 

And honey-bees have stored 
Th3 sweets of summer in their luscious cells ; 
The swallows all have wino;ed across the main : 
But here the Autumn melancholy dwells, 

And sighs her tearful spells 
Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain. 
Alone, alone, 
Upon a mossy stone, 
She sits and reckons up the dead and gone, 
With the last leaves for a love-rosary. 
Whilst all the withered world looks drearily, 
Like a dim picture of the drowned past 
In the hushed mind's mysterious far away, 
Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last 
Into that distance, gray upon tlie gray. 

0, go and sit with her, and be o'ershaded. 
Under the languid downfall of her hair : 
She wears a coronal of floAvers faded 
Upon her forehead, and a face of care ; — 
There is enough of withered everywhere 
To make her bower, — and enough of gloom ; 
There is enough of sadness to invite, 
If only for the rose that died, — whose doom 
Is Beauty's, — she that with the living bloom 
Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light ; — 
There is enough of sorrowing, and quite 
Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear — 
Enough of chilly droppings for her bowl ; 
Enough of fear and shadowy despair. 
To frame her cloudy prison for the soul ! 



172 SONG. — BALLAD. 

SONG. 

FOR MUSIC. 

A LAKE and a fairy boat 

To sail in the moonlight clear, — 

And merrily we would float 

From the dragons that watch us here ! 

Thy gown should be snow-white silk ; 
And strings of orient pearls, 
Like gossamers dipped in milk, 
Should twine with thy raven curls ! 

Red rubies should deck thy hands, 
And diamonds should be thy dower — 
But fairies have broke their wands. 
And wishing has lost its power ! 



BALLAD. 



Spring it is cheery, 

Winter is dreary. 
Green leaves hang, but the brown must fly; 

When he 's forsaken. 

Withered and shaken, 
What can an old man do but die 7 

Love will not clip him, 

Maids will not lip him, 
Maud and Marian pass him by ; 

Youth it is sunny. 

Age has no honey, — 
What can an old man do but die i 



> 



•f 



HYMN TO THE SUN. 173 

June it was jolly, 

for its folly ! 
A dancing leg and a laughing eye ! 

Youth may be silly, 

Wisdom is chilly, — 
What can an old man do but die 7 

Friends they are scanty, 

Beggars are plenty. 
If he has followers, I know why ; 

Gold 's in his clutches, 

(Buying him crutches !) — 
What can an old man do but die 1 



HYMN TO THE SUN. 

Giver of glowing light ! 
Though but a god of other days, 

The kings and sages 

Of wiser ages 
Still live and gladden in thy genial rays. 

King of the tuneful lyre, 
Still poets' hymns to thee belong ; 

Though lips are cold 

Whereon of old 
Thy beams all turned to worshipping and song ! 

Lord of the dreadful bow, 
None triumph now for Python's death : 

But thou dost save 

From hungry grave 
The life that hangs upon a summer breath. 



174 TO A COLD BEAUTY. 

Father of rosy day, 
No more thy clouds of incense rise ; 

But Avaking flowers 

At morning hours 
Give out their sweets to meet thee in the skies. 

God of the Delphic fane, 
No more thou hstenest to hymns sublime ; 

But they will leave 

On winds at eve 
A solemn echo to the end of time. 



TO A COLD BEAUTY. 

Lady, wouldst thou heiress be 
To Winter's cold and cruel part? 

When he sets the rivers free. 

Thou dost still lock up thy heart ; — 

Thou that shouldst outlast the snow 

But in the whiteness of thy brow ? 

Scorn and cold neglect are made 
For winter gloom and winter wind, 

But thou wilt wrong the summer air, 
Breathing it to words unkind, — 

Breath which only should belong 

To love, to sunlight, and to song ! 

When the little buds unclose, 

Bed, and white, and pied, and blue, 

And that virgin flower, the rose, 
Opes her heart to hold the dew, 

Wilt thou lock thy bosom up 

With no jewel in its cup 7 



RUTH. 175 

Let not cold December sit 

Thus in Love's peculiar throne; — 

Brooklets are not prisoned now, 
But crystal frosts are all agone, 

And that which hangs upon the spray, 
It is no snow, but flower of May ! 



RUTH. 

She stood breast-high amid the corn, 
Clasped by the golden light of morn, 
Like the sweetheart of the sun, 
Who many a glowing kiss had won. 

On her cheek an autumn flush, 
Deeply ripened ; — such a blush 
In the midst of brown was born, 
Like red poppies grown with corn. 

Kound her eyes her tresses fell ; 
Which were blackest none could tell. 
But lonor lashes veiled a liirht 
That had else been all too bright. 

And her hat, with shady brim, 
Made her tressy forehead dim ; — 
Thus she stood amid the stooks, 
Praising God with sweetest looks : — 

Sure, I said, Heaven did not mean 
Where I reap thou shouldst but glean 
Lay thy sheaf adown and come, 
Share my harvest and my home. 



X76 THE SEA OF DEATH. 

THE SEA OF DEATH. 

A FRAGMENT. 

Methought I saw 

Life swiftly treading over endless space ; 
And, at her foot-print, but a bygone pace. 
The ocean-past, which, with increasing wave, 
Swallowed her steps like a pursuing grave. 

Sad were my thoughts that anchored silently 
On the dead waters of that passionless sea, 
Unstirred by any touch of living breath : 
Silence hung over it, and drowsy Death, 
Like a gorged sea-bird, slept with folded wings 
On crowded carcasses — sad passive things 
That wore the thin gray surface like a veil 
Over the calmness of their features pale. 

And there were spring-faced cherubs that did sleep 

Like water-lilies on that motionless deep. 

How beautiful ! with bright unruffled hair 

On sleek unfretted brows, and eyes that were 

Buried in marble tombs, a pale eclipse ! 

And smile-bedimpled cheeks, and pleasant lips. 

Meekly apart, as if the soul intense 

Spake out in dreams of its own innocence : 

And so they lay in loveliness, and kept 

The birth-night of their peace, that Life even wept 

With very envy of their happy fronts ; 

For there were neighbor brows scarred by the brunts 

Of strife and sorrowing — where Care had set 

His crooked autograph, and marred the jet 

Of glossy locks, with hollow eyes forlorn, 

And lips that curled in bitterness and scorn — 



AUTUMN. — BALLAD. 177 

Wretched, — as they had breathed of this world's pain. 

And so bequeathed it to the world again, 

Through the beholder's heart, in heavy sighs. 

So lay they garmented in torpid light, 

Under the pall of a transparent night, 

Like solemn apparitions lulled sublime 

To everlasting rest, — and with them Time 

Slept, as he sleeps upon the silent face 

Of a dark dial in a sunless place. 



AUTUMN. 

The autumn skies are flushed with gold^ 
And fair and bright the rivers run ; 
These are but streams of winter cold. 
And painted mists that quench the sun. 

In secret boug-hs no sweet birds sins^, 
In secret boughs no bird can shroud ; 
These are but leaves that take to wing, 
And wintry winds that pipe so loud. 

'T is not trees' shade, but cloudy glooma 
That on the cheerless valleys fall ; 
The flowers are in their grassy tombs, 
And tears of dew are on them all. 



BALLAD. 

She 's up and gone, the graceless girl 
And robbed my failing years ; 

My blood before was thin and cold, 
But now "t is turned to tears ; — 

12 



17 e I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER. 

My shadow falls upon my grave ; 

So near the brink I stand, 
She might have staid a little yet, 

And led me by the hand ! 

Ay, call her on the barren moor, 

And call her on the hill, — 
'Tis nothing but the heron's cry. 

And plover's answer shrill; 
My child is flown on wilder wings 

Than they have ever spread, 
And I may even walk a waste 

That widened when she fled. 

Full many a thankless child has been, 

But never one like mine ; 
Her meat was served on plates of gold. 

Her drink was rosy wine ; 
But now she '11 share the robin's food; 

And sup the common rill, 
Before her feet will turn again 

To meet her father's will ! 



I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER. 

I REMEMBER, I remember 
The house where I was born. 
The little window where the sun 
Came peeping in at morn ; 
He never came a wink too soon. 
Nor brought too long a day ; 
But now I often wish the night 
Had borne my breath away ! 



BALLAD, 170 

I remember, I remember 
The roses red and white. 
The violets, and the lily-cups, 
Those flowers made of lio;ht ! 
The lilacs where the robin built, 
And where mj brother set 
The laburnum on his birth-day, — 
The tree is living yet ! 

I remember, I remember 

Where I was used to swing, 

And thought the air must rush as fresh 

To svf allows on the wing ; 

My spirit flew in feathers then, 

That is so heavy now. 

And summer pools could hardly cool 

The fever on my brow ! 

I remember, I remember 

The fir-trees dark and high ; 

I used to think their slender tops 

Were close against the sky : 

It was a childish ignorance, 

But now 'tis little joy 

To know I 'm further off from heaven 

Than when I was a boy. 



BALLAD. 



Sigh on, sad heart, for Love's eclipse 
And Beauty's fairest queen, 

Though 't is not for my peasant lips 
To soil her name between : 



l^Q BALLAD. 

A king might lay his sceptre down, 
But I am poor and naught, 

The brow should wear a golden crown 
That wears her in its thought. 

The diamonds glancing in her hair, 

Whose sudden beams surprise, 
Might bid such humble hopes beware 

The glancing of her eyes ; 
Yet looking once, I looked too long, 

And if ray love is sin, 
Death follows on the heels of wrong, 

And kills the crime within. 

Her dress seemed wove of lily leaves, 

It was so pure and fine, 
lofty wears, and lowly weaves, 

But hoddan gray is mine ; 
And homely hose must step apart. 

Where gartered princes stand, 
But may he wear my love at heart 

That wins her lily hand ! 

Alas! there's far from russet frize 

To silks and satin gowns, 
But I doubt if God made like degrees 

In courtly hearts and clowns. 
My father wronged a maiden's mirth, 

And brought her cheeks to blame. 
And all that 's lordly of my birth 

Is my reproach and shame ! 

'Tis vain to weep,— 't is vain to sigh, 
'Tis vain this idle speech. 

For where her happy pearls do lie 
My tears may never reach ; 



THE WATER LADY. 18] 

Yet when I 'm gone, e'en loftj pride 

May say of what has been, 
His love was noblj born and died, 

Though all the rest was mean ! 

My speech is rude, — but speech is weak 

Such love as mine to tell, 
Yet had I words, I dare not speak, 

So, lady, fare thee well ; 
I will not wish thy better state 

Was one of low degree. 
But I must weep that partial fate 

Made such a churl of me. 



THE WATER LADY. 

Alas ! the moon should ever beam 
To show what man should never see ! ■ 
I saw a maiden on a stream. 
And fiiir was she ! 

I staid a while, to see her throw 
Her tresses back, that all beset 
The fair horizon of her brow 
With clouds of jet. 

I staid a little while to view 
Her cheek, that wore in place of red 
The bloom of water, tender blue, 
Daintily spread. 

I staid to watch, a little space, 
Her parted lips if she would sing : 
The waters closed above her face 
With many a ring. 



Ig2 THE EXILE. 



And still I staid a little more ; 
Alas ! she never comes again ! 
I throw my flowers from the shore, 
And watch in vain. 

I know my life will fade away, 
I know that I must vainly pine ; 
For I am made of mortal clay. 
But she 's divine ! 



THE EXILE. 

The swallow with summer 

Will wing o'er the seas, 
The wind that I sigh to 

Will visit thy trees, 
The ship that it hastens 

Thy ports will contain. 
But me — I must never 

See England ao;ain ! 

There 's many that weep there, 

But one weeps alone, 
For the tears that are fallins: 

So far from her own ; 
So far from thy own, love, 

We know not our pain j 
If death is between us, 

Or only the main. 

Wlien the white cloud reclines 
On the verge of the sea, 

I fancy the white cliffs. 
And dream upon thee : 



TO AN ABSENTEE. — SONG. l83 

But the cloud spread its wings 

To the blue heaven and flies. 
We never shall meet, love. 

Except in the skies ! 



TO AN ABSENTEE. 

O'er hill, and dale, and distant sea, 
Through all the miles that stretch between, 
My thought must fly to rest on thee, 
And would, though worlds should inter vena 

Nay, thou art now so dear, methinks 
The further we are forced apart, 
AiFection's firm elastic links 
But bind the closer round the heart. 

For now we sever each from each, 
I learn what I have lost in thee ; 
Alas ! that nothing less could teach 
How great indeed my love should be ! 

Farewell ! I did not know thy worth ; 
But thou art gone, and now 'tis prized : 
So angels walked unknown on earth, 
But when tliey flew were recognized I 



SONG. 

The stars are with the voyager 
Wherever he may sail ; 

The moon is constant to her time : 
The sun will never fail ; 



i84 ODE TO THE MOON. 

But follow, follow round the world, 
The green earth and the sea ; 

So love is with the lover's heart, 
Wherever he may be. 

Wherever he may be, the stars 

Must daily lose their light : 
The moon will veil her in the shade 

The sun will set at night. 
The sun may set, but constant love 

Will shine when he 's away; 
So that dull night is never night, 

And day is brighter day. 



ODE TO THE MOON. 

Mother of light ! how fairly dost thou go 
Over those hoary crests, divinely led ! — 
Art thou that huntress of the silver bow 
Fabled of old '? Or rather dost thou tread 
Those cloudy summits thence to gaze below, 
Like the wild chamois from her Alpine snow, 
Where hunter never climbed, — secure from dread? 
How many antique fancies have I read 
Of that mild presence ! and how many Avrought ! 

Wondrous and brio-ht, 

Upon the silver light, 
Chasing fair figures with the artist. Thought ! 

What art thou like 1 — sometimes I see thee ride 
A far-bound galley on its perilous way, 
Whilst breezy Avaves toss up their silvery spray ; — 
Sometimes behold thee glide, 



ODE TO THE MOON. 185 

Clustered bj all thj family of stars, 

Like a lone widow, through the welkin wide, 

Whose pallid cheek the midnight sorrow mars ; — 

Sometimes I watch thee on from steep tc steep^ 

Timidly lighted by thy vestal torch, 

Till in some Latmian cave I see thee creep. 

To catch the young Endymion asleep, — 

Leaving thy splendor at the jagged porch ! — 

0, thou art beautiful, howe'er it be ! 
Huntress, or Dian, or whatever named ; 
And he, the veriest Pagan, that first framed 
A silver idol, and ne'er worshipped thee ! — 
It is too late, or thou shouldst have my knee ; 
Too late now for the old Ephesian vows, 
And not divine the crescent on thy broAvs ! — 
Yet, call thee nothing but the mere mild moon, 

Behind those chestnut boughs, 
Casting their dappled shadows at my feet ; 
I will be grateful for thai simple boon. 
In many a thoughtful verse and anthem sweet, 
And bless thy dainty face whene'er we meet. 

In nights far gone, — ay, far away and dead, — 
Before Care-fretted with a lidless eye, — 
I was thy wooer on my little bed, 
Letting the early hours of rest go by. 
To see thee flood the heaven with milky light, 
And feed thy snow-white swans, befoxe I slept ; 
For thou wert then purveyor of my dreams, — 
Thou wert the fairies' armorer, that kept 
Their burnished helms, and crowns, and corselets bright. 
Their spears and glittering mails ; 



18(5 ODE TO THE MOON. 

And ever thou didst spill in winding streams 

Sparkles and midnight gleams. 
For fishes to new gloss their argent scales ! — 

Why sighs ? — why creeping tears? — why clasped hands V 

Is it to 'count the boy's expended dower? 

That Mries since have broke their gifted wands ? 

That young Delight, like any o'erblown flower, 

Gave, one by one, its sweet leaves to the ground ? — 

Why then, fair Moon, for all thou mark'st no hour, 

Thou art a sadder dial to old Time 

Than ever I have found 
On sunny garden-plot, or moss-grown tower, 
Mottoed with stern and melancholy rhyme. 

Why should 1 grieve for this 7 — 1 must yearn, 

Whilst Time, conspirator with Memory, 

Keeps his cold ashes in an ancient urn. 

Richly embossed with childhood's revelry. 

With leaves and clustered fruits, and flowers eterne,— ' 

(Eternal to the world, though not to me,) 

Aye there will those brave sports and blossoms be, 

The deathless wreath, and undecayed festoon, 

When I am hearsed within, — 
Less than the pallid primrose to the moon, 
That now she watches through a vapor thin. 



So let it be : — Before I lived to sigh, 
Thou wert in Avon, and a thousand rills, 
Beautiful orb ' an I so, whene'er I lie 
Trodden, thou wilt be gazing from thy hills. 
Blest be thy loving hght, where'er it spills. 
And blessed thy fair face, mother mild ! 
Still shine, the soul of rivers as they run, 



TO . 187 

Still lend thy lonely lamp to lovers fond, 
And blend their plighted shadows into one : — 
Still smile at even on the bedded child. 
And close his eyelids with thy silver wand ! 



TO 



Welcome, dear heart, and a most kind good-morrow ; 
The day is gloomy, but our looks shall shine : — 
Flowers I have none to give thee, but I borrow 
Their sweetness in a verse to speak for thine. 

Here are red roses, gathered at thy cheeks, — 
The white were all too happy to look white : 
For love the rose, for faith the lily speaks ; 
It withers in false hands, but here 'tis bright ! 

Dost love sweet hyacinth '? Its scented leaf 
Curls manifold, — all loves delights blow double : 
'T is said this floweret is inscribed with grief, — 
But let that hint of a for^-otten trouble. 

I plucked the primrose at night's dewy noon ; 
Like Hope, it showed its blossoms in the night ; — 
'T was like Endymion, watching for the moon ! 
And here are sunflowers, amorous of light ! 

These golden buttercups are April's seal, — 
The daisy stars her constellations be : 
These grew so lowly, I was forced to kneel, 
Therefore I pluck no daisies but for thee ! 

Here 's daisies for the morn, primrose for gloom, 
Pansios and roses for the noontide hours : — 
A wight once made a dial of their bloom, — 
So may thy life be measured out by flowers ! 



Igg THE FOESAKExN.- AUTUMN. 

THE FORSAKEN. 

The dead are in their silent graves, 
And the dew is cold above, 
And the living weep and sigh 
Over dust that once was love. 

Once I only wept the dead. 

But now the living cause my pain : 

How couldst thou steal me from my tears, 

To leave me to my tears again 7 

My mother rests beneath the sod, — 
Her rest is calm and very deep : 
I wished that she could see our loves, — 
But now I gladden in her sleep. 

Last night unbound my raven locks, 
The morning saw them turned to gray, 
Once they were black and well beloved, 
But thou art changed, — and so are they ! 

The useless lock I gave thee once, 

To gaze upon and think of me. 

Was ta'en with smiles, — but this was torn 

In sorrow that I send to thee. 



AUTUMN. 



The Autumn is old, 
The sere leaves are flying ; — - 
He hath gathered up gold, 
And now he is dying ; — 
Old age, begin sighing ! 



ODE TO MELANCHOLY. 

The vintage is ripe, 
The harvest is heaping ; — 
But some that have sowed 
Have no riches for reaping ; — 
Poor wretch, fall a weeping ! 

The year 's in the wane, 
There is nothing adorning, 
The night has no eve, 
And the day has no morning ; - 
Cold winter gives warning. 

The rivers run chill, 

The red sun is sinking, 

And I am grown old, 

And life is fast shrinking ; — 

Here 's enow for sad thinking ! 



189 



ODE TO MELANCHOLY. 

Come, let us set our careful breasts^ 
Like Philomel, against the thorn, 
To aggravate the inward grief, 
That makes her accents so forlorn ; 
The world has many cruel points, 
Whereby our bosoms have been torn, 
And there are dainty themes of grief, 
In sadness to outlast the morn, — 
True honor's dearth, affection's death. 
Neglectful pride, and cankering scorn, 
With all the piteous tales that tears 
Have watered smce the world was born. 



][90 ODE TO MELANCHOLY. 

The world ! — it is a wilderness. 

Where tears are hung on everj tree ; 

For thus mj gloomj fantasy 

Makes all things weep with me ! 

Come let us sit and watch the sky, 

And fancy clouds where no clouds be ; 

Grief is enough to blot the eye, 

And make heaven black with misery. 

Why should birds sing such merry notes, 

Unless they were more blest than we 7 

No sorrow ever chokes their throats, 

Except sweet nightingale ; for she 

Was born to pain our hearts the more 

With her sad melody. 

Why shines the sun, except that he 

Makes gloomy nooks for Grief to hide. 

And pensive shades for Melancholy, 

When all the earth is bright beside ? 

Let clay wear smiles, and green grass wave,^ 

Mirth shall not win us back again, 

Whilst man is made of his own grave, 

And fairest clouds but gilded rain ! 

I saw my mother in her shroud. 
Her cheek was cold and very pale ; 
And ever since I 've looked on all 
As creatures doomed to fail ! 
Why do buds ope, except to die 7 
Ay, let us watch the roses wither, 
And think of our loves' cheeks ; 
And, 0, how quickly time doth fly 
To bring death's winter hither ! 
Minutes, hours, days, and weeks. 



ODE TO MELANCHOLY. 191 

Months, years, and ages, shrink to naught ; 
An age past is but a thought ! 

Ay, let us think of him a while, 
That, with a coffin for a boat, 
Kows daily o'er the Stygian moat, 
And for our table choose a tomb : 
There 's dark enough in any skull 
To charge with black a raven plume ; 
And for the saddest funeral thouo-hts 
A winding-sheet hath ample room, 
Where Death, with his keen-pointed style, 
Hath writ the common doom. 
How wide the yew-tree spreads its gloom^ 
And o'er the dead lets fall its dew, 
As if in tears it wept for them. 
The many human families 
That sleep around its stem ! 
How cold the dead have made these stones, 
With natural drops kej^t ever wet ! 
Lo ! here the best, the worst, the world 
^ Doth now remember or forget, 
Are in one common ruin hurled, 
And love and hate are calmly met ; 
The loveliest eyes that ever shone, 
The fairest hands, and locks of jet. 
Is 't not enough to vex our souls. 
And fill our eyes, that we have set 
Our love upon a rose's leaf. 
Our hearts upon a violet ? 
Blue eyes, red cheeks, are frailer yet ; 
And. sometimes, at their swift decay 
Beforehand we must fret : 
riie roses bud and bloom again • 



192 ODE TO MELANCHOLY. 

but love may haunt the grave of love, 
And watch the mould in vain. 

clasp me, sweet, whilst thou art mine, 

And do not take mj tears amiss ; 

For tears must flow to wash away 

A thought that shows so stern as this : 

Forgive, if somewhile I forget, 

In woe to come, the present bliss. 

As frighted Proserpine let fall 

Her flowers at the sight of Dis, 

Even so the dark and bright will kiss. 

The sunniest thino-s throw sternest shade. 

And there is even a happiness 

That makes the heart afraid ! 

Now let us with a spell invoke 

The full-orbed moon to grieve our eyes ; 

Not bright, not bright, but, with a cloud 

Lapped all about her, let her rise 

All pale and dim, as if ff om rest 

The ghost of the late buried sun 

Had crept into the skies. 

The moon ! she is the source of sighs, 

The very face to make us sad ; 

If but to think in other times 

The same calm quiet look she had, 

As if the world held nothing base, 

Of vile and mean, of fierce and bad ; 

The same fair light that shone in streams 

The fairy lamp that charmed the lad ; 

For so it is, with spent delights 

She taunts men's brains, and makes them mad. 

All things are touched with melancholy, 

Born of the secret soul's mistrust, 



SONNETS. 193 

To feel her fair ethereal wings 
Weighed doAvn with vile degraded dust ; 
Even the bright extremes of joy 
Bring on conclusions of disgust, 
Like the sweet blossoms of the May, 
Whose fragrance ends in must. 
0, give her, then, her tribute just. 
Her sighs and tears, and musings holy ! 
There is no music in the life 
That sounds with idiot laughter solely ; 
There 's not a string attuned to mirth, 
But has its chord in Melancholy. 



SONNETS. 

WRITTEN IN A VOLUME OF SHAKSPEARE. 

How bravely Autumn paints upon the sky 

The gorgeous fame of Summer whicli is fled ! 

Hues of all flowers that in their ashes lie, 

Trophied in that fair light whereon they fed, 

Tulip, and hyacinth, and sweet rose red,-- 

Like exhalations from the leafy mould, 

Look here how honor glorifies the dead, 

And warms their scutcheons with a glance of gold ! 

Such is the memory of poets old. 

Who on Parnassus' hill have bloomed elate ; 

Now they are laid under their marbles cold. 

And turned to clay, whereof they were create ; 

But god iVpollo hath them all enrolled, 

And blazoned on the very clouds of fate ! 

13 



194 SONNETS. 



TO FANCY. 



Most delicate Ariel ! submissive thing, 
Won by the mind's high magic to its best, — 
Invisible embassy, or secret guest, — 
Weighing the light air on a lighter wing ; — 
Whether into the midnight moon, to bring 
Illuminate visions to the eye of rest, — 
Or rich romances from the florid West, — 
Or to the sea, for mystic whispering, — 
Still by thy charmed allegiance to the will 
The fruitful wishes prosper in the brain, 
As by the fingering of fairy skill, — 
Moonlight, and waters, and soft music's strain, 
Odors, and blooms, and my Miranda's smile. 
Making this dull world an enchanted isle. 



TO AN ENTHUSIAST. 

Young ardent soul, graced with fair Nature's truth^ 
Spring warmth of heart, and fervency of mind, 
And still a large late love of all thy kind, 
Spite of the world's cold practice and Time's tooth, 
For all these gifts, I know not, in fair sooth, 
Whether to give thee joy, or bid thee blind 
Thine eyes with tears, — that thou hast not resigned 
The passionate fire and freshness of thy youth : 
For as the current of thy life shall flow, 
Gilded by shine of sun or shadow-stained, 
Through flowery valley or unwholesome fen, 
Thrice blessed in thy joy, or in thy woe 
Thrice cursed of thy race,— thou art ordained 
To share beyond the lot of common men. 



SONNETS. 195 

It is not death, that sometime in a sigh 

This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight ; 

That sometime these bright stars, that now reply 

In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night ; 

That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite, 

And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow ; 

That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal spright 

Be lapped in alien clay and laid below ; 

It is not death to know this, — but to know 

That pious thoughts, Avhich visit at new graves 

In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go 

So duly and so oft, — and when grass waves 

Over the past-away, there may be then 

No resurrection in the minds of men. 



By every sweet tradition of true hearts, 
Graven by Time, in love with his own lore ; 
By all old martyrdoms and antique smarts, 
Wherein Love died to be alive the more ; 
Yea, by the sad impression on the shore 
Left by the drowned Leander, to endear 
That coast forever, where the billows' roar 
Moaneth for pity in the poet's ear ; 
By Hero"s faith, and the foreboding tear 
That quenched her brand's last twinkle in its fall 
By Sappho's leap, and the low rustling fear 
That sighed around her flight : I swear by all, 
The world shall find such pattern in my act. 
As if Love's great examples still were lacked. 



L96 SONNETS. 



ON RECEIVING A GIFT. 



Look how the golden ocean shines above 

Its pebblj stones, and magnifies their girth : 

So does the bright and blessed light of love 

Its own things glorify, and raise their worth. 

As weeds seem flowers beneath the flattering brine, 

And stones like gems, and gems as gems indeed, 

Even so our tokens shine ; nay, they outshine 

Pebbles and pearls, and gems and coral weed ; 

For where be ocean waves but half so clear. 

So calmly constant, and so kindly warm, 

As Love's most mild and glowing atmosphere. 

That hath no dregs to be upturned by storm 7 

Thus, SAveet, thy gracious gifts are gifts of price, 

And more than gold to doting Avarice. 



SILENCE. 

There is a silence where hath been no sound, 

There is a silence where no sound may be, 

In the cold grave — under the deep, deep sea, 

Or in wide desert where no life is found. 

Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound ; 

No voice is hushed — no life treads silently. 

But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free, 

That never spoke, over the idle ground : 

But in green ruins, in the desolate walls 

Of antiijue palaces, where Man hath been, 

Though the dun fox, or wild hyena, calls, 

And owls, that flit continually between, 

Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan. 

There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone. 



SONNETS. 197 

The curse of Adam, the old curse of all 

Though I inherit in this feverish life 

Of worldly toil, vain wishes, and hard strife, 

And fruitless thought, in Care's eternal thrall, 

Yet more sweet honey than of bitter gall 

I taste, through thee, my Eva, my sweet wife. 

Then what was Man's lost Paradise ! — how rife 

Of bliss, since love is with him in his fall ! 

Such as our own pure passion still might frame. 

Of this fair earth, and its delightful bowers, 

If no fell sorrow, like the serpent, came 

To trail its venom o'er the sweetest flowers : — 

But, ! as many and such tears are ours, 

As only should be shed for guilt and shame ! 



Love, dearest lady, such as I would speak, 
Lives not within the humor of the eye ; — 
Not being but an outward fantasy, 
That skims the surface of a tinted cheek — 
Else it would wane with beauty, and grow weak 
As if the rose made summer, — and so lie 
Amongst the perishable things that die, 
Unlike the love which I would give and seek, 
Whose health is of no hue — to feel decay 
With cheeks' decay, that have a rosy prime. 
Love is its own great loveliness alway. 
And takes new lustre from the touch of time ; 
Its bough owns no December and no May, 
But bears its blossom into Winter's clime. 



198 THE LAST MAN. 



"THE LAST MAN." 



'T WAS in the year two thousand and one, 

A pleasant morning of Maj, 

I sat on the gallows-tree all alone, 

A chanting a merry lay, — 

To think how the pest had spared my life, 

To sing with the larks that day ! 

When up the heath came a jolly knave, 
Like a scarecrow, all in rags : 
It made me crow to see his old duds 
All abroad in the wind, like flags : — 
So up he came to the timbers' foot 
And pitched down his greasy bags. — 

Good Lord ! how blithe the old beggar was 

At pulling out his scraps, — 

The very sight of his broken orts 

Made a work in his wrinkled chaps : 

" Come down," says he, "you Newgate-bird, 

And have a taste of my snaps ! " 

Then down the rope, like a tar from the mast, 

I slided, and by him stood ; 

But I wished myself on the gallows again 

When I smelt that beo-o-ar's food, — 

A foul beef-bone and a mouldy crust ; — 

" ! " quoth he, " the heavens are good ! " 

Then after this grace he cast him down. 

Says I, '' You '11 get sweeter air 

A pace or two off, on the windward side,''— 

For the felons' bones lay there. — 

But he only laughed at the empty skulls, 

And offered them part of his fare. 



THE LAST MAN. 199 

" I never harmed them^ and they won't harm me : 

Let the proud and the rich be cravens ! " 

I did not like that strange beggar man, 

He looked so up at the heavens. 

Anon he shook out his empty old poke ; 

" There 's the crumbs," saith he, " for the ravens ! " 

It made me angry to see his face, 

It had such a jesting look ; 

But while I made up my mind to speak, 

A small case-bottle he took ; 

Quoth he, ' ' Though I gathtr the green watei wess, 

My drink is not of the brook ! " 

Full manners-like he tendered the dram . 

0, it came of a dainty cask ! 

But, whenever it came to his turn to pu]i, 

" Your leave, good sir, I must ask ; 

But I always wipe the brim with my sleeve, 

When a hangman sups at my flask ! " 

And then he laughed so loudly and long. 

The churl was quite out of breath ; 

I thought the very Old One was come 

To mock me before my death. 

And wished I had buried the dead men's bone* 

That were lying about the heath ! 

But the beggar gave me a jolly clap — 
" Come, let us pledge each other, 
For all the wide world is dead beside. 
And we are brother and brother — 
I 've a yearning for thee in my heart, 
As if we had come of one mother. 



200 THE LAST MAN. 

' I 've a yearning for thee in my heart, 
That almost makes me weep, 
For as I passed from town to town 
The folks were all stone-asleep, — 
But wlien I saw thee sitting aloft. 
It made me both laugh and leap ! " 

JSow a curse (I thought) be on his love, 

And a curse upon his mirth, — 

An' it were not for that beggar man 

I 'd be the king of the earth, — 

But I promised jjayself an hour should oome 

To make him rue his birth ! — 

So down we sat and boused again 

Till the sun was in mid-sky, 

When, just when the gentle west-wind came, 

We hearkened a dismal cry ; 
' Up, up, on the tree," quoth the beggar maiij 
' Till these horrible dogs go by ! " 

A.nd, lo ! from the forest's far-off skirts 

They came all yelling for gore, 

A hundred hounds pursuing at once, 

And a panting hart before, 

Till he sunk adown at the gallows' foot, 

And there his haunches they tore ! 

His haunches they tore, without a horn 
To tell when the chase was done ; 
And there was not a single scarlet coat 
To flaunt it in the sun ! — 
I turned, and looked at the beggar man, 
And his tears dropt one by one ! 



THE LAST MAN. 201 

And with curses sore he chid at the hounds, 

Till the last dropt out of sight ; 

Anon, saith he, " Let 's down again, 

And ramble for our delight, 

For the world 's all free, and we may choose 

A right cosoy barn for to-night ! " 

With that, he set up his staff on end, 
And it fell with the point due west ; 
So we fared that way to a city great 
Where the folks had died of the pest — 
It was fine to enter in house and hall, 
Wherever it liked me best ; — 

For the porters all were stiff and cold, 

And could not lift their heads ; 

And when he came where their masters lay, 

The rats leapt out of the beds : — 

The grandest palaces in the land 

Were as free as workhouse sheds. 

But the beggar man made a mumping face, 

And knocked at every gate : 

It made me curse to hear how he whined ; 

So our fellowship turned to hate, 

And I bade him walk the world by himself. 

For I scorned so humble a mate ! 

So he turned right and / turned left. 

As if we had never met ; 

And I chose a fair stone house for myself, 

For the city was all to let ; 

And for three brave holidays drank my fill 

Of the choicest that I could get. 



'202 THE LAST MAN. 

And bi^cause my jerkin was coarse and worn, 

I got me a properer vest ; 

It was purple velvet, stitched o'er with gold, 

And a shining star at the breast, — 

'T was enough to fetch old Joan from her grave 

To see me so purely drest ! — 

But Joan was dead and under the mould, 

And every buxom lass ; 

In vain I watched at the window-pane, 

For a Christian soul to pass ; — 

But sheep and kine wandered up the street. 

And browsed on the new-come grass. — 

When, lo ! I spied the old beggar man, 
And lustily he did sing ! — 
His rags were lapped in a scarlet cloak, 
And a crown he had like a king ; 
So he stept right up before my gate 
And danced me a saucy fling ! 

Heaven mend us all ! — but, within my mind 
I had killed him then and there ; 
To see him lording so braggart-like 
That was born to his bego-ar's fare, 
And how he had stolen the royal crown 
His betters were meant to wear. 

But God forbid that a thief should die, 

Without his share of the laws ! 

So I nimbly whipt my tackle out. 

And soon tied up his claws, — 

I was judge myself, and jury, and all, 

And solemnly tried the cause. 



THE LAST MAN. 203 

But the beggar man would not plead, but cried 

Like a babe without its corals, 

For he knew how hard it is apt to go 

When the law and a thief have quarrels, — 

There was not a Christian soul alive 

To speak a word for his morals. 

0, how gaylj I doffed my costly gear, 

And put on my work-day clothes ; 

I was tired of such a long Sunday life, — 

And never was one of the sloths ; 

But the beggar man grumbled a weary deaL 

And made many crooked mouths. 

So I hauled him off to the gallows' foot, 

And blinded him in his bags ; 

'T was a weary job to heave him up, 

For a doomed man always lags ; 

But by ten of the clock he was off his legs 

In the wind, and airing his rags ! 

So there he hung, and there I stood. 

The last man left alive, 

To have my own will of all the earth : 

Quoth I, now I shall thrive ! 

But when was ever honey made 

With one bee in a hive ? 

My conscience began to gnaw my heart, 

Before the day was done. 

For the other men's lives had all gone cat 

Like candles in the sun ! — 

But it seemed as if I had broke, at last, 

A thousand necks in one ! 



204 THE LAST MAN. 

So I went and cut his body down, 

To bury it decently ; — 

God send there were any good soul alive 

To do the like by me ! 

But the wild dogs came wilh terrible speed, 

And bayed me up the tree ! 

• 
My sight was like a drunkard's sight, 
And my head began to swim, 
To see their jaws all white with foam, 
Like the ravenous ocean-brim ; — 
But when the wild dogs trotted away 
Their jaws were bloody and grim ! 

Their jaws were bloody and grim, good Lord ! 

But the beggar man, where was he 7 — 

There was naught of him but some ribbons of rags 

Below the gallows-tree ! — 

I know the devil, when I am dead, 

Will send his hounds for me ! — 

I 've buried my babies one by one. 
And dug the deep hole for Joan, 
And covered the faces of kith and kin. 
And felt the old church-yard stone 
Go cold to my heart, full many a time, 
But I never felt so lone ! 

For the lion and Adam were company. 
And the tiger him beguiled ; 
But the simple kine are foes to my life, 
And the household brutes are wild. 
If the veriest cur would lick my hand, 
I could love it like a child ! 



THE LEE SHORE. 205 

And the beggar man's gliost besets mj dream, 

At night, to make me madder, — 

And my wretched conscience, within my breast, 

Is like a stinging adder ; — 

I sigh when I pass the gallows' foot, 

And look at the rope and ladder ! 

For hanging looks sweet, — but, alas ! in vam 

My desperate fancy begs, — 

I must turn my cup of sorrows quite up, 

And drink it to the dregs, — 

For there is not another man alive, 

In the world, to pull my legs ! 



THE LEE SHORE. 

Sleet ! and hail ! and thunder I 
And ye winds that rave, 

Till the sands thereunder 
Tinge the sullen wave — 

Winds, that like a demon 
Howl with horrid note 

Round the toiling seaman, 
In his tossing boat — 

From his humble dwelling 

On the shingly shore. 
Where the billows swelling 

Keep such hollow roar — ■ 

From that weepnig woman, 
Seeking with her cries 



206 THE DEATH-BED. 

Succor superhuman 
From the frowning skies — 

From the urchin pining 
For his father's knee — 

From the lattice shining, 
Drive him out to sea ! 

Let broad leagues dissever 
Him from yonder foam ; — 

0, God ! to think man ever 
Comes too near his home ! 



THE DEATH-BED. 

We watched her breathing through the night, 

Her breathing soft and low, 
As in her breast the wave of life 

Kept heaving to and fro. 

So silently we seemed to speak, 

So slowly moved about, 
As we had lent her half our powers 

To eke her living out. 

Our very hopes belied our fears, 

Our fears our hopes belied — 
We thought her dying when she slept, 

And sleeping when she died. 

For when the mom came dim and sad, 

And chill with early showers. 
Her quiet eyelids closed — she had 

Another morn than ours. 



LINES. — TO MY LAUGHTER. 20' 

LINES 

ON SEEING MY WIFE AND TWO CHILDREN SLEEPING IN THE SAME 

CHAMBER. 

And has the earth lost its so spacious round. 
The sky its blue circumference above, 
That in this little chamber there is found 
Both earth and heaven — mj universe of love ! 
All that my God can give me or remove, 
Here sleeping, save myself, in mimic death. 
Sweet that in this small compass I behove 
To live their living and to breathe their breath ! 
Almost I wish that with one common sigh 
We might resign all mundane care and strife, 
And seek together that transcendent sky. 
Where father, mother, children, husband, wife. 
Together pant in everlasting life ! 



TO MY DAUGHTER, 

ON HER BIRTHDAY. 

Dear Fanny ! nine long years ago. 
While yet the morning sun was low, 
And rosy with the eastern glow • 

The landscape smiled ; 
Whilst lowed the nevfly- wakened herds - 
Sweet as the early song of birds, 
I heard those first, delightful words, 

''Thou hast a child!" 

Along with that uprising dew 

Tears glistened in my eyes, though few 

To hail a dawning quite as neW; 



208 TO A CHILD. 

To me, as time : 
It was not sorrow — not annoy — 
Bttt like a happy maid, though coy, 
With grief-like welcome, even joy 

Forestalls i4;s prime. 

So may' St thou live, dear ! many years, 

In all the bliss that life endears, 

Not without smiles, nor yet from tears 

Too strictly kept : 
When first thy infant littleness 
I folded in my fond caress. 
The greatest proof of happiness 

Was this — I wept. 



TO A CHILD 

EMBRACING HIS MOTHER. 

Love thy mother, little one ! 
Kiss and clasp her neck again, — 
Hereafter she may have a son 
Will kiss and clasp her neck in vain. 
Love thy mother, little one ! 

Gaze upon her living eyes, 
And mirror back her love for thee, — 
Hereafter thou may'st shudder sighs 
To meet them when they cannot see. 
Gaze upon her living eyes ! 

Press her lips the while they glow 
With love that they have often told, — 
Hereafter thou may'st press in woe, 
And kiss them till thine own are cold. 
Press her lips the while they glow ! 



STANZAS. 209 

0, revere her raven hair ! 

Although it be not silver-gray ; 
Too early death, led on by care, 
May snatch save one dear lock away. 
! revere her raven hair ! 

Pray for her at eve and morn, 
That heaven may long the stroke defer,— 
For thou may'st live the hour forlorn 
When thou wilt ask to die with her. 
Pray for her at eve and morn ! 



STANZAS. 

Farewell life ! my senses swim, 
And the world is growing dim : 
Thronging shadows cloud the light, 
Like the advent of the night — 
Colder, colder, colder still. 
Upward steals a vapor chill ; 
Strong the earthy odor grows — 
I smell the mould above the rose ! 

Welcome life ! the spirit strives ! 
Strength returns and hope revives ; 
Cloudy fears and shapes forlorn 
Fly like shadows at the morn, — 
O'er the earth there comes a blooir 
Sunny light for sullen gloom. 
Warm perfume for vapor cold — 
I smell the rose above the mould ? 

April, 1845. 
14 



210 TO A FALSE FRIEND. — A POET'S PORTION. 

TO A FALSE FRIEND. 

Our hands have met, but not our hearts ; 

Our hands will never meet again 

Friends if we have ever been, 

Friends we cannot now remain: 

I only know I loved you once, 

I only know I loved in vain ; 

Our hands have met, but not our hearts ; 

Our hands will never meet ao;ain ! 



Then farewell to heart and hand ! 

I would our hands had never met : 

Even the outward form of love 

Must be resigned with some regret. 

Friends we still might seem to be, 

If my wrong could e'er forget 

Our hands have joined, but not our hearts 

I would our hands had never met ! 



THE POET'S PORTION. 



What is a mine — a treasury — a dower — 
A magic talisman of mighty power '? 
A poet's wide possession of the earth. 
He has the enjoyment of a flower's birth 
Before its budding — ere the first red streaks,- 
And winter cannot rob him of their cheeks. 
Look — if his dawn be not as other men's ! 
Twenty bright flushes — ere another kens 
The first of sunlight is abroad — he sees 
Its golden 'lection of the topmost trees. 
And opes the splendid fissures of the morn. 
When do his fruits delay, when doth his corn 



SONG. 211 

Linger for harvesting 1 Before the leaf 

Is commonly abroad, in his piled sheaf 

The flagging poppies lose their ancient flame. 

No sweet there is, no pleasure I can name, 

But he will sip it first — before the lees. 

'T is his to taste rich honey, — ere the bees 

Are busy with the brooms. He may forestall 

June's rosy advent for his coronal ; 

Before the expectant buds upon the bough, 

Twining his thoughts to bloom upon his brow. 

! blerit to see the flower in its seed. 

Before its leafy presence ; for indeed 

Leaves are but wings, on which the summer flies. 

And each thing perishable fades and dies. 

Escaped in thought ; but his rich thinkings be 

Like overflows of immortality. 

So that what there is steeped shall perish never. 

But live and bloom, and be a joy forever. 



SONG. 

Lady, leave thy silken thread 

And flowery tapestrie : 
There 's living roses on the busu, 

And blossoms on the tree ; 
Stoop where thou wilt, thy careless hand 

Some random bud will meet ; 
Thou canst not tread, but thou wilt find 

The daisy at thy feet. 

'T is like the birthday of the world, 
When earth was born in bloom ; 

The light is made of many dyes, 
The air is all perfume : 



2J2 TIME, HOPE, AND MEMORY. 

There 's crimson buds, and white and blue 

The very rainbow showers 
Have turned to blossoms where they fell, 

And sown the earth with flowers. 

There 's fairy tulips in the east, 

The garden of the sun ; 
The very streams reflect the hues. 

And blossom as they run : 
While Morn opes like a crimson rose, 

Still wet Avith pearly showers ; 
Then, lady, leave the silken thread 

Thou twinest into flowers ! 



TIME, HOPE, AND MEMORY. 

I HEARD a gentle maiden, in the spring, 
Set her sweet sighs to music, and thus sing : 
" Fly through the world, and I will follow thee, 
Only for looks that may turn back on me ; 

'• Only for roses that your chance may throw — 
Though withered — I will wear them on my brow, 
To be a thoughtful fragrance to my brain ; 
Warmed with such love, that they will bloom again. 

" Thy love before thee, I must tread behind. 
Kissing thy foot-prints, though to me unkind; 
But trust not all her fondness, though it seem, 
Lest thy true love should rest on a false dream. 

■ Her face is smiling, and her voice is sweet : 
l>ut smiles betray, and music sings deceit ; 
A nd words speak false ; — yet, if they welcome prove, 
I 11 be their echo, and repeat their love. 



FLOWERS. 213 

'' Only if wakened to sad truth, at last, 
The bitterness to come, and sweetness past ; 
When thou art vext, tl»on, turn again, and see 
Thou hast loved Hope, but Memory loved thee." 



FLOWERS. 



I WILL not have the mad Clytie, 
Whose head is turned by the sun ; 
The tulip is a courtly quean, 
Whom, therefore, I will shun : 
The cowslip is a country wench, 
The violet is a nun ; — 
But I will woo the dainty rose, 
The queen of every one. 

The pea is but a wanton witch, 
In too much haste to wed, 
And clasps her rings on every hand ; 
The wolfsbane I should dread ; — 
Nor will I dreary rosemarye, 
That always mourns the dead ; — 
But I will woo the dainty rose. 
With her cheeks of tender red. 

The lily is all in white, like a saint, 

And so is no ma,te for me — 

And the daisy's cheek is tipped with a blush, 

She is of such low degree ; 

Jasmine is sweet, and has many loves, 

And the broom 's betrothed to the bee ; — 

But r will plight with the dainty rose, 

For fairest of all is she. 



214 TO 



TO 



Still glides the gentle streamlet on, 
With shifting current new and strange ; 
The water that was here is gone, 
But those green shadows never change. 

Serene or ruffled by the storm. 
On present waves, as on the past, 
The mirrored grove retains its form. 
The self-same trees their semblance cast. 

The hue each fleeting globule wears 
That drop bequeaths it to the next ; 
One picture still the surface bears, 
To illustrate the murmured text. 

So, love, however time may flow. 
Fresh hours pursuing those that flee, 
One constant image still shall show 
My tide of life is true to thee. 



TO 



Let us make a leap, my dear, 
In our love, of many a year, 
And date it very far away. 
On a bright clear summer day. 
When the heart was like a sun 
To itself, and falsehood none ; 
And the rosy lips a part 
Of the very loving heart. 
And the shining of the eye 
But a sign to know it by ; — - 



I 



TO 



215 



When my faults were all forgiven, 
And my life deserved of Heaven. 
Dearest, let us reckon so, 
And love for all that long ago ; 
Each absence count a year complete, 
And keep a birthday when we meet. 

TO 

I LOVE thee — I love thee ! 

'T is all that I can say ; — 
It is my vision in the night, 

My dreaming in the day ; 
The very echo of my heart. 

The blessing when I pray : 
I love thee — I love thee ! 

Is all that I can say. 

I love thee — I love thee ! 

Is ever on my tongue ; 
In all my proudest poesy 

That chorus still is sung ; 
It is the verdict of my eyes, 

Amidst the gay and young: 
I love thee — I love thee ! 

A thousand maids among. 

I love thee — I love thee ! 

Thy bright and hazel glance, 
The mellow lute upon those lips, 

Whose tender tones entrance ; 
But most, dear heart of hearts, thy proofe 

That still these words enhance, 
X love thee — I love thee ! 

Whatever be thy chance. 



21Q SERENADE. — VERSES IN AN ALBUM. 

SERENADE. 

Ah, sweet, thou little knowest how 

I wake and passionate watches keep ; 
And yet, while I address thee now, 

Methinks thou smilest in thy sleep. 
'T is sweet enough to make me weep, 

That tender thought of love and thee, 
That while the world is hushed so deep, 

Thy soul 's perhaps awake to me ! 

Sleep on, sleep on, sweet bride of sleep ! 

With golden visions for thy dower. 
While I this midnight vigil keep, 

And bless thee in thy silent bower ; 
To me 't is sweeter than the power 

Of sleep, and fairy dreams unfurled, 
That I alone, at this still hour, 

In patient love outwatch the world, 



VERSES IN AN ALBUM. 

Far above the hollow 
Tempest, and its moan, 
Singeth bright Apollo 
In his golden zone, — 
Cloud doth never shade him, 
Nor a storm invade him, 
On his joyous throne. 

So when I behold me 

In an orb as brigjht. 

How thy soul doth fold me 



BALLAD. — THE ROMANCE OF COLOGNE. 217 

In its throne of light ! 
Sorrow never paineth 
Nor a care attaineth. 
To that blessed height. 



BALLAD. 

It was not in the winter 
Our loving lot was cast ; 
It was the time of roses, — 
We plucked them as we passed ! 

That churlish season never frowned 
On earlj lovers yet ! 
0, no — the world was newly crowned 
With flowers when first we met. 

'T was twilight, and I bade you go, 
But still you held me fast ; 
It was the time of roses, — 
We plucked them as we passed ! 



THE ROMANCE OF COLOGNE. 

'T IS even — on the pleasant banks of Rhino 
The thrush is singing and the dove is cooing : 
A youth and maiden on the turf recline 
Alone — and he is wooing. 

Yet woos in vain, for to the voice of love 
No kindly sympathy the maid discovers, 
Though round them both, and in the air above, 
The tender spirit hovers. 



218 THE ROMANCE OF COLOGNE. 

Untouched by lovely Nature and her laws, 
The more he pleads, more coyly she represses ; 
Her lips denies, and now her hand withdraws, 
Rejecting his addresses. 

Fair is she as the dreams young poets weave. 
Bright eyes and dainty lips and tresses curly, 
In outward loveliness a child of Eve, 
But cold as nymph of Lurley. 

The more Love tries her pity to engross, 
The more she chills him with a strange behavior ; 
Now tells her beads, now gazes on the Cross 
And image of the Saviour. 

Forth goes the lover with a farewell moan, 
As from the presence of a thing unhuman ; — 
0, what unholy spell hath turned to stone 
The young warm heart of woman ! 

^ ^ ji, _ii, jfct 

-TV* 'A' -ft" -tS* ^ 

'T is midnight — and the moonbeam, cold and wan, 
On bower and river quietly is sleeping, 
And o'er the corse of a self-murdered man 
The maiden fair is weeping. 

In vain she looks into his glassy eyes. 
No pressure answers to her hands so pressing ; 
In her fond arms impassively he lies, 
Clay-cokl to her caressing. 

Despairing, stunned, by her eternal loss, 
She flies to succor that may best beseem her ; 
But, lo ! a frowning figure veils the Cross, 
And hides the blest Redeemer ! 

\\'ith stern right hand it stretches forth a scroll, 
Wherem she reads, in melancholy letters. 



THE KEY. 219 

The cruel, fatal pact that placed her boul 
And her joung heart in fetters. 

" Wretch ! sinner ! renegade to truth and God ! 
Thy holy faith for human love to barter ! " 
No more she hears, but on the bloody sod 
Sinks, Bigotry's last martyr ! 

And side by side the hapless lovers lie ; 
Tell me, harsh priest ! by yonder tragic token, 
What part hath God in such a bond, whereby 
Or hearts or vows are broken 7 



THE KEY. 



A MOORISH ROMANCE. 



♦ ' On the east coast, towards Tunis, the Moors still preserve the keys 
of their ancestors' houses in Spain ; to which country they still express 
the hopes of one day returning, and again planting the Crescent on the 
ancient walls of the Alhambra." — Scott's Travels in Morocco and 
Algiers. 

" Is Spain cloven in such a manner as to want closing ' " — SAJSfCno 
Panza. 

The Moor leans on his cushion, 

With the pipe between his lips ; 

And still at frequent intervals 

The sweet sherbet he sips ; 

But, spite of lulling vapor 

And the sober cooling cup, 

The spirit of the swarthy Moor 

Is fiercely kindling up ! 

One hand is on his pistol, 
On its ornamented stock. 
While his finger feels the trigger 
And is busy with the lock — 



220 THE KEY. 

The other seeks his ataghan, 
And clasps its jewelled hilt — 
! much of gore in days of yore 
That crooked blade has split ! 

His brows are knit, his eyes of jet 

In vivid blackness roll, 

And gleam with fatal flashes 

Like the fire-damp of the coal ; 

His jaws are set, and through his teetn 

He draws a savage breath, 

As if about to raise the shout 

Of Victory or Death ! 

For why 7 the last Zebeck that came 

And moored within the mole 

Such tidings unto Tunis brought 

A.S stir his very soul — 

Jhe cruel jar of civil war, 

I'he sad and stormy reign, 

That blackens like a thunder-cloud 

The sunny land of Spain ! 

No strife of glorious Chivalry, 

For honor's gain or loss, 

Nor yet that ancient rivalry. 

The Crescent with the Cross. 

No charge of gallant Paladins 

On Moslems stern and stanch ; 

But Christians shedding Christian blood 

Beneath the olive's branch ! 



A war of hoi rid parricide, 

And brother killing brother ; 

Yea, like to "dogs and sons of dogs,' 

That worry one another. 



THE KEY. 221 

But let them bite and tear and fight ; 
The more the Kaffers slaj, 
The sooner Hagar's swarming sons 
Shall make the land a prey ! 

The sooner shall the Moor behold 
The Alhambra's pile again, 
And those who pined in Barbary 
Shall shout for joy in Spain : 
The sooner shall the Crescent wave 
On dear Granada's walls, 
And proud Mohammed Ali sit 
Within his father's halls ! 

'' AUa-il-alla ! " tiger-like 
Up springs the swarthy Moor, 
And, with a wide and hasty stride, 
Steps o'er the marble floor; 
Across the hall, till from the wall. 
Where such quaint patterns be, 
With eager hand he snatches down 
An old and massive key ! 

A massive key of curious shape, 
And dark with dirt and rust. 
And well three weary centuries 
The metal might incrust ' 
For since the king Boabdil fell 
Before the native stock, 
That ancient key, so quaint to see. 
Hath never been in lock. 

Brought over by the Saracens 
Who fled across the main, 
A token of the secret hope 
Of going back again ; 



222 THE KEY. 



From race to race, from hand to hand, 
From house to house, it passed ; 
0, will it ever, ever ope 
The palace gate, at last 1 

Three hundred years and fifty-two 
On post and wall it hung — 
Three hundred years and fifty- two 
A dream to old and young ; 
But now a brighter destiny 
The Prophet's will accords : 
The time is come to scour the rust, 
And lubricate the wards. 

For should the Moor with sword and lance 

At Algesiras land, 

Where is the bold Bernardo now 

Their progress to withstand 7 

To Burgos should the Moslem come, 

Where is the noble Cid 

Five royal crowns to topple down, 

As gallant Diaz did? 

Hath Xeres any Pounder now. 

When other weapons fail. 

With club to thrash invaders rash, 

Like barley with a flail ? 

Hath Seville any Perez still, 

To lay his clusters low, 

And ride with seven turbans green 

Around his saddle-bow 7 

No ! never more shall Europe see 
Such heroes brave and bold. 
Such valor, faith, and loyalty, 
As used to shine of old ! 



THE KEY. 22b 

No longer to one battle-cry 

United Spaniards run, 

And with their thronging spears uphold 

The Virgin and her Son ! 

From Cadiz Bay to rough Biscay 

Internal discord dwells, 

And Barcelona bears the scars 

Of Spanish shot and shells. 

The fleets decline, the merchants pine 

For want of foreign trade ; 

And gold is scant ; and Alicante 

Is sealed by strict blockade ! 

The loyal fly, and valor ftills, 

Opposed by court intrigue ; 

But treachery and traitors thrive, 

Upheld by foreign league ; 

While factions seeking private ends 

By turns usurping reign — 

Well may the dreaming, scheming Moor 

Exulting point to Spain ! 

Well may he cleanse the rusty key 

With Afric sand and oil, 

And hope an Andalusian home 

Shall recompense the toil ! 

Well may he swear the Moorish spear 

Through wild Castile shall sweep, 

And where the Catalonian sOAved 

The Saracen shall reap ! 

Well may he vow to spurn the Cross 
Beneath the Arab hoof, 
And plant the Crescent yet again 
Above the Alhambra's roof, 



224 SONNETS. 



When those from whom St. Jago's name 
In chorus once arose 
Are shouting faction's battle-cries, 
And Spain forgets to '^ Close 1 " 

Well may he swear his ataghan 

Shall rout the traitor swarm, 

And carve them into arabesques 

That show no human form ' — 

The blame be theirs whose bloody feuds 

Invite the savage Moor, 

And tempt him with the ancient key 

To seek the ancient door ' 



SONNETS. 



TO THE OCEAN. 



Shall I rebuke thee, Ocean, my old love, 
That once, in rage, with the wild winds at strife, 
Thou darest menace my unit of a life, 
Sending my clay below, my soul above. 
Whilst roared thy waves, like lions when they rove 
By night, and bound upon their prey by stealth ? 
Yet didst thou ne'er restore my fainting health ? — 
Didst thou ne'er murmur gently like the dove 7 
Nay, didst thou not against my own dear shore 
Full break, last link between my land and me ? — 
My absent friends talk in thy very roar, 
In thy waves' beat their kindly pulse I see, 
And, if I must not see my England more, 
Next to her soil, my grave be found in thee ! 
Coblentz, May, 1835. 



SONNETS. 225 



LEAR. 



A POOE old king, with sorrow for my crown, 
Throned upon straw, and mantled with the wind- 
For pity, my own tears have made me blind, 
That 1 might never see my children's frown ; 
And may be madness, like a friend, has thrown 
A folded fillet over my dark mind. 
So that unkindly speech may sound for kind, — ■ 
Albeit I know not. — I am childish grown — 
And have not gold to purchase wit withal — 
I that have once maintained most royal state — 
A very bankrupt now, that may not call 
My child, my child — all-beggared save in tears, 
Wherewith I daily weep an old man's fate, 
Foolish — and blind — and overcome with years I 



SONNET TO A SONNET. 

Rare composition of a poet-knight, 
Most chivalrous amongst chivalric men. 
Distinguished for a polished lance and pen 
In tuneful contest and in tourney-fight ; 
Lustrous in scholarship, in honor bright, 
Accomplished in all graces current then. 
Humane as any in historic ken. 
Brave, handsome, noble, affable, polite ; 
Most courteous to that race become of late 
So fiercely scornful of all kind advance, 
Rude, bitter, coarse, implacable in hate 
To Albion, plotting ever her mischance, — - 
Alas, fair verse ! how false and out of date 
Thy phrase " sweet enemy " applied to France I 

15 



226 feiONNETS. 



FALSE POETS AND TRUE. 



Look how the lark soars upward and is gone 

Turning a spirit as he nears the skj ! 

His voice is heard, but body there is none 

To fix the vague excursions of the eye. 

So, poets' songs are with us, though they die 

Obscured and hid by Death's oblivious shroud, 

And earth inherits the rich melody, 

Like raining music from the morning cloud. 

Yet, few there be who pipe so sweet and loud, 

Their voices reach us through the lapse of space 

The noisy day is deafened by a crowd 

Of undistinguished birds, a twittering race ; 

But only lark and nightingale forlorn 

Fill up the silences of night and morn. 



TO 



My heart is sick with longing, though I feed 
On hope ; Time goes with such a heavy pace 
That neither brings nor takes from thy embrace, 
As if he slept — forgetting his old speed : 
For, as in sunshine only we can read 
The march of minutes on the dial's face, 
So in the shadows of this lonely place 
There is no love, and time is dead indeed. 
But when, dear lady, I am near thy heart, 
Thy smile is time, and then so swift it flies, 
It seems we only meet to tear apart 
With aching hands and lingering of eyes. 
Alas, alas ! that we must learn hours' flight 
By the same light of love that makes them bright 



SONNETS. 227 



FOR THE FOURTEENTH OP FEBRUARY. 

No popular respect will I omit 
To do thee honor on this happy day, 
When every loyal lover tasks his wit 
His simple truth in studious rhymes to pay, 
And to his mistress dear his hopes convey. 
Rather thou knowest I would still outrun 
All calendars with Love's, — whose date alway 
Thy bright eyes govern better than the sun, — • 
For with thy favor was my life begun ; 
And still I reckon on from smiles to smiles. 
And not by summers, for I thrive on none 
But those thy cheerful countenance compiles : 
! if it be to choose and call thee mine, 
Love, thou art every day my Valentine. 



TO A SLEEPING CHILD. 

O, 't IS a touching thing, to make one weep, — 
A tender infant with its curtained eye, 
Breathing as it would neither live nor die 
With that unchanging countenance of sleep ! 
As if its silent dream, serene and deep, 
Had lined its slumber with a still blue sky, 
So that the passive cheeks unconscious lie, 
With no more life than roses — just to keep 
The blushes warm, and the mild, odorous breath. 
blossom boy ! so calm is thy repose, 
So sweet a compromise of life and death, 
'T is pit} those fair buds should e'er unclose 
For memory to stain their inward leaf. 
Tinging thy dreams with unacquainted grief. 



*228 SONNETS. 



TO A SLEEPING CHILD. 



Thine eyelids slept so beauteously, I deemed 

No eyes could wake so beautiful as they : 

Thy rosy cheeks in such still slumbers lay, 

I loved their peacefulness, nor ever dreamed 

Of dimples : — for those parted lips so seemed, 

I never thought a smile could sweetlier play, 

Nor that so graceful life could chase away 

Thy graceful death, — till those blue eyes upbeamed. 

Now slumber lies in dimpled eddies drowned, 

And roses bloom more rosily for joy, 

And odorous silence ripens into sound, 

And fingers move to sound. — All-beauteous boy ' 

How thou dost waken into smiles, and prove. 

If not more lovely, thou art more like Love ! 



The world is with me, and its many cares. 

Its woes — its wants — the anxious hopes and fears 

That wait on all terrestrial affairs — 

The shades of former and of future years — 

Foreboding ftxncies and prophetic tears, 

Quelling a spirit that was once elate. 

Heavens ! what a wilderness the world appears, 

Where youth, and mirth, and health are out of date 

But no — a laugh of innocence and joy 

Resounds, like music of the fairy race, 

And, gladly turning from the world's annoy, 

I gaze upon a little radiant face, 

And ))less, internally, the merry boy 

Who "makes a son-shine in a shady place." 



nUMOROUS POEMS. 



HUMOROUS POEMS. 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 

A GOLDEN LEGEND. 



" What is here 1 
Gold 1 yellow, glittering, precious gold 1 *' 

TiMON OF Athens. 



To trace the Kilmansegg pedigree. 
To the very roots of the family tree, 

Were a task as rash as ridiculous : 
Through antediluvian mists as thick 
As London fog such a line to pick 
Were enough, in truth, to puzzle Old Nick, 

Not to name Sir Harris Nicholas. 

It would n't require much verbal strain 
To trace the Kill-man, perchance, to Cain ; 

But, waving all such digressions, 
Suffice it, according to family lore, 
A Patriarch Kilmansegg lived of yore, 

Who was famed for his great possessions. 

Tradition said he feathered his nest 
Through an agricultural interest 
In the golden age of farming ; 
When golden eggs were laid by the geese, 
And Colchian sheep wore a golden fleece. 



232 MISS KILMANSEGa AND HER PRECIOUS LEO. 

And golden pippins — the sterling kind 
Of Hesperus — now so hard to find — 
Made horticulture quite charming ! 

A lord of land, on his own estate 
He lived at a very lively rate, 

But his income would bear carousing ; 
Such acres he had of pasture and heath. 
With herbage so rich from the ore beneath, 
The very ewe's and lambkin's teeth 

Were turned into gold by browsing. 

He gave, without any extra thrift, 
A flock of sheep for a birthday gift 

To each son of his loins, or daughter : 
And his debts — if debts he had — at will 
He liquidated by giving each bill 

A dip in Pactolian water. 

^T was said that even his pigs of lead, 
By crossing with some by Midas bred, 

Made a perfect mine of his piggery. 
And as for cattle, one yearling bull 
Was worth all Smithfield-market full 

Of the golden bulls of Pope Gregory. 

The high-bred horses within his stud, 
Like human creatures of birth and blood, 

Had their golden cups and flagons : 
And as for the common husbandry nags, 
Their noses were tied in money-bags, 

When they stopped with the carts and wagons. 

Moreover, he had a golden ass. 
Sometimes at stall, and sometimes at grass. 
That was worth his own weight in money — 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 23S 

And a golden hive, on a golden bank, 
Where golden bees, by alchemical prank, 
Gathered gold instead of honey. 

Gold ! and gold ! and gold without end ! 
He had gold to lay by, and gold to spend, 
Gold to give, and gold to lend. 

And reversions of gold in fiitiiro. 
In wealth the family revelled and rolled. 
Himself and wife and sons so bold ; — 
And his daughters sang to their harps of gold 

" bella eta del' oro ! " 

Such was the tale of the Kilmansegg kin 

In golden text on a vellum skin, 

Though certain people would wink and grin, 

And declare the whole story a parable — 
That the ancestor rich was one Jacob Ghrimes, 
Who held a long lease, in prosperous times, 

Of acres, pasture and arable. 

That as money makes money, his golden bees 
Were the Five per Cents, or which you please, 

When his cash was more than plenty — 
That the golden cups were racing affairs ; 
And his daughters, who sang Italian airs. 

Had their golden harps of Clementi. 

That the golden ass, or golden bull, 
Was English John, with his pockets full, 

Then at war by land and water : 
While beef, and mutton, and other meat, 
Were almost as dear as money to eat. 
And farmers reaped golden harvests of wheat 

At the Lord knows what per quarter ! 



234 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 

What different dooms our birthdays bring ! 
For instance, one little manikin thing 

Survives to wear many a wrinkle ; 
While death forbids another to wake, 
And a son that it took nine moons to make 

Expires without even a twinkle : 

Into this world we come like ships, 

Launched from the docks, and stocks, and slips, 

For fortune fair or fatal ; 
And one little craft is cast away 
In its very first trip in Babbicome Bay, 

While another rides safe at Port Natal. 

What different lots our stars accord ! 

This babe to be hailed and wooed as a lord ! 

And that to be shunned like a leper ! 
One, to the world's wine, honey, and com, 
Another, like Colchester native, born 

To its vinegar, only, and pepper. 

One is littered under a roof 
Neither wind nor water proof, — 

That 's the prose of Love in a cottage, — 
A puny, naked, shivering wretch. 
The whole of whose birthright would not fetch. 
Though Robins himself drew up the sketch, 

The bid of " a mess of pottage." 

Born of Fortunatus's kin. 
Another comes tenderly ushered in 

To a prospect all bright and burnished : 
No tenant he for life's back slums — 
He comes to the v/orld as a gentleman comes 

To a lodging ready furnished. 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 235 

And the other sex — • the tender — the fair — 

What wide reverses of fate are there ! 

Whilst Margaret, charmed by the Bulbul rare. 

In a garden of Gul reposes. 
Poor Peggy hawks nosegays from street to street 
Till — think of that, who find life so sweet ! — 

She hates the smell of roses ! 

Not so with the infant Kilmansegg ! 
She was not born to steal or beg, 

Or gather cresses in ditches ; 
To plait the straw, or bind the shoe, 
Or sit all day to hem and sew. 
As females must, and not a few — 

To fill their insides with stitches ! 

She was not doomed, for bread to eat. 

To be put to her hands as well as her fi ( t — 

To carry home linen from mangles — 
Or heavy-hearted, and weary-limbed. 
To dance on a rope in a jacket trimmed 

With as many blows as spangles. 

She was one of those who by Fortune's boon 
Are born, as they say, with a silver spoon 

In her mouth, not a wooden ladle : 
To speak according to poet's wont, 
Plutus as sponsor stood at her font. 

And Midas rocked the cradle. 

At her first dthiit she found her head 
On a pillow of down, in a downy bed, 

With a damask canopy over. 
For although by the vulgar popular saw 
All mothers are said to be •' in the straw/* 

Some children are born in clover. 



236 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HBR PRECIOUS LEG. 

Her very first draught of vital air 
It was not the common chameleon fare 
Of plebeian lungs and noses, — 
No — her earliest snifl' 
Of this world was a whiff 
Of the genuine Otto of Roses ! 

When she saw the light, it was no mere ray 
Of that light so common, so everj-day, 

That the sun each morning launches ; 
But six wax tapers dazzled her eyes, 
From a thing — a gooseberry-bush for size — > 

With a golden stem and branches. 

She was born exactly at half-past two, 
As witnessed a time-piece in or-molu 

That stood on a marble table — 
Showing at once the time of day. 
And a team of Gildings running away 

As fast as they were able. 
With a golden god, with a golden star, 
And a golden spear, in a golden car, 

Accordino; to Grecian fable. 

Like other babes, at her birth she cried ; 
Which made a sensation far and wide, 

Ay, for twenty miles around her ; 
For though to the ear 't was nothing more 
Than an infant's squall, it was really the roar 
Of a fifty-thousand pounder ! 
It shook the next heir 
In his library chair. 
And made him cry " Confound her ! " 

Of signs and omens there was no dearth, 
Any more than at Owen Glendower's birth, 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 

Or the advent of otber great people : 
Two bullocks dropped dead, 
As if knocked on the head, 
And barrels of stout 
And ale ran about, 
And the village-bells such a peal rang out, 
That they cracked the village steeple. 

In no time at all, like mushroom spawn, 
Tables sprang up all over the lawn ; 
Not furnished scsintilj or shabbily, 
But on scale as vast 
As that huge repast, 
With its loads and i;argoes 
Of drink and botargoes. 
At the birth of the babe in Rabelais. 

Hundreds of men were turned into beasts, 
Like the guests at Circe's horrible feasts, 

By the magic of ale and cider : 
And each country lass, and each country lad, 
Began to caper and dance like mad, 
And even some old ones appeared to have had 

A bite from the Naples spider. 

Then as night came on, 

It had scared King John, 
Who considered such signs not risible, 

To have seen the maroons. 

And the whirling moons, 

And the serpents of flame, 

And wheels of the same. 
That according to some were " whizzable." 

0, happy Hope of the Kilmanseggs ! 
Thrice happy in head, and body, and legs, 
That her parents had such full pockets ! 



238 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 



For had she been born, of want and thrift, 
For care and nursing all adrift, 
It 's ten to one she had had to make shift 
With rickets instead of rockets ! 

And how was the precious baby drest 7 
In a robe of the East, with lace of the West, 
Like one of Croesus's issae — 
Her best bibs were made 
Of rich gold brocade. 
And the others of silver tissue. 

And when the baby inclined to nap 
She was lulled on a Gros de Naples lap, 
By a nurse in a modish Paris cap. 

Of notions so exalted, 
She drank nothing lower than Curacoa, 
Maraschino, or pink Noyau, 
And on principle never malted. 

From a golden boat, with a golden spoon^ 
The babe was fed night, morning, and noon ; 

And, although the tale seems fabulous, 
'T is said her tops and bottoms were gilt. 
Like the oats in that stable-yard palace built 

For the horse of Heliogabalus. 

And when she took to squall and kick — 
For pain will wring and pins will prick 
E'en the wealthiest nabob's daughter — 
They gave her no vulgar Dalby or gin, 
But a liquor with leaf of gold therem. 
Videlicet, — Dantzic Water. 

In short, she was born, and bred, and nursfc, 
And drest in the best from the very first, 
To please the genteelest censor — ■ 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG, 239 

And tlien, as soon as strength would allow, 
Was vaccinated, as babes are now, 
With virus ta'en from the best-bred cow 
Of Lord Althorpe's — now Earl Spencer. 

Jittx €l)r(stenin3. 

Though Shakspeare asks us " What 's in a name ?" 
(As if cognomens were much the same,) 

There 's really a very great scope in it. 
A name 7 — why, was n't there Doctor Dodd, 
That servant at once of Mammon and God, 
Who found four thousand pounds and odd, 

A prison — a cart — and a rope in it ? 

A name ? — if the party had a voice. 
What mortal would be a Bugg by choice ? 
As a Hogg, a Grubb, or a Chubb rejoice ? 

Or any such nauseous blazon-? 
Not to mention many a vulgar name, 
That would make a door-plate blush for shame. 

If door-plates were not so brazen ! 

A name 7 — it has more than nominal worth, 
And belongs to good or bad luck at birth — 

As dames of a certain degree know. 
In spite of his page's hat and hose. 
His page's jacket, and buttons in rows. 
Bob only sounds like a page of prose 

Till turned into Kupertino. 

Now, to christen the infant Kilmansegg, 
For days and days it was quite a plague, 

To hunt the list in the lexicon : 
And scores were tried, like coin, by the ring, 
Ere names were found just the proper thing, 

For a minor rich as a Mexican. 



240 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LE(J. 

Then cards were sent, the presence to beg 
Of all the kin of Kilmansegg, 

White, yellow, and brown relations : 
Brothers, wardens of city halls, 
And uncles — rich as three golden balls 

From taking pledges of nations. 

Nephews, whom Fortune seemed to bewitch, 

Rising m life like rockets — 
Nieces whose doweries knew no hitch — 
Aunts as certain of dying rich 
As candles in golden sockets — 
Cousins German, and cousins' sons, 
All thriving and opulent — some had tons 

Of Kentish hops in their pockets ! 

For money had stuck to the race through life 
(As it did to the bushel when cash so rife 
Posed Ali Baba's brother's wife) — 

And, down to the cousins and coz-lings 
The fortunate brood of the Kilmanseo-o-s, 

do 7 

As if they had come out of golden eggs, 
Were all as wealthy as "goslings." 

It would fill a Court Gazette to name 
What east and west end people came 

To the rite of Christianity ; 
The lofty lord and the titled dame, 

All diamonds, plumes, and urbanity ; 
The Lordship the Mayor with his golden chain, 
And two Gold Sticks, and the sheriffs twain. 
Nine foreign counts, and other great men 
With their orders or stars, to help M or N 

To renounce all pomp and vanity. 

To paint the maternal Kilmanseo-o- 
The pen of an Eastern poet would beg. 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 241 

And need an elaborate sonnet ; 
How she sparkled with gems whenever she stirred, 
And her head niddle-noddled at every word. 
And seemed so happy, a paradise bird 

Had nidificated upon it. 

And Sir Jacob the father strutted and bowed, 
And smiled to himself, and laughed aloud, 

To think of his heiress and daughter — 
And then in his pockets he made a grope, 
And then, in the fulness of joy and hope, 
Seemed washing his hands with invisible soap 

In imperceptible water. 

He had rolled in money like pigs in mud, 
Till it seemed to have entered into his blood 

By some occult projection ; 
And his cheeks, instead of a healthy hue, 
As yellow as any guinea grew, 
Making the common phrase seem true 

About a rich complexion. 

And now came the nurse, and during a pause, 
Her dead-leaf satin would fitly cause 

A very autumnal rustle — 
So full of figure, so full of fuss, 
As she carried about the babe to buss. 

She seemed to be nothins; but bustle. 

A wealthy Nabob was godpapa, * 

And an Indian Begum was godmamma, 

Whose jewels a queen might covet ; 
And the priest was a vicar, and dean withal 
Of that temple we see with a golden ball, 

And a golden cross above it. 

16 



242 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEC*. 

The font was a bowl of American gold, 
Won by Raleigh in days of old, 

In spite of Spanish bravado ; 
And the book of prayer was so overrun 
With gilt devices, it shone in the sun 
Like a copy — a presentation one — 

Of Humboldt's "El Dorado." 

Gold ! and gold ! and nothing but gold ! 
The same auriferous shine behold 

Wherever the eye could settle ! 
On the walls — the sideboard — the ceiling-sky — 
On the gorgeous footmen standing by, 
In coats to delight a miner's eye 

With seams of the precious metal. 

Gold ! and gold ! and besides the gold. 
The very robe of the infant told 
A tale of wealth in every fold, 

It lapped her like a vapor ! 
So fine ! so thin ! the mind at a loss 
Could compare it to nothing except a cross 

Of cobweb with bank-note paper. 

Then her pearls — 'twas a perfect sight, forsooth, 
To see them, like " the dew of her youth," 

In such a plentiful sprinkle. 
Meanwhile, the vicar read through the form, 
And ga\e her another, not overwarm, 
* That made her little eyes twinkle. 

Then the babe was crossed and blessed amain , 
But instead of the Kate, or Ann, or Jane, 

Which the humbler female endorses — 
Instead of one name, as some people prefix, 
Kilmansegg went at the tails of six, 

Like a carriage of state with its horses. 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. '243 

! then the kisses she got and hugs ! 
The golden mugs and the golden jugs, 

That lent fresh rays to the midges ! 
The golden knives, and the golden spoons, 
The gems that sparkled like fairy boons. 
It was one of the Kilmansegg's own saloons, 

But looked like Rundell and Bridge's ! 

Gold ! and gold ! the new and th^ old ! 
The company ate and drank from gold, 

They revelled, they sang, and were merry; 
And one of the Gold Sticks rose from his chair, 
And toasted " the lass with the golden hair" 

In a bumper of golden sherry. 

Gold ! still gold ! it rained on the nurse, 
Who, unlike Danae, was none the worse ; 
There was nothing but guineas glistening ! 
Fifty were given to Doctor James, 
For calling the little baby names ; 
And for saying Amen ! 
The clerk had ten, 
And that was the end of the Christening. 

%}zv myiimjooXi. 

Our 3^outh ! our childhood ! that spring of springs ! 
'T is surely one of the blessedest things 

That nature ever invented ! 
When the rich are wealthy beyond their wealth 
And the poor are rich in spirits and health, 

And all with their lots contented ! 

There 's little Phelim, he sings like a thrush, 
In the self-same pair of patchwork plush, 
With the self-same empty pockets. 



244 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG, 

That tempted his daddj so often to cut 
His throat, or jump in the water-butt — 
But what cares Phelim 1 an empty nut 
Would sooner bring tears to their sockets. 

Give him a collar without a skirt. — 

That "s the Irish linen for shirt ; 

And a slice of bread, with a taste of dirt, — 

That 's poverty's Irish butter : 
And what does he lack to make him blest 7 
Some oyster-shells, or a sparrow's nest, 

A (fan die-end and a gutter. 

But, to leave the happy Phelim alone, 
Gnawing, perchance, a marrowless bone. 

For which no dog would quarrel — 
Turn we to little Miss Kilmansegg, 
Cutting her first little toothy-peg 
With a fifty-guinea coral — 
A peg upon which 
About poor and rich 
Reflection might hang a moral. 

Born in wealth, and wealthily nursed. 

Capped, papped, napped, and lapped from the firts 

On the knees of Prodigality, 
Her childhood was one eternal round 
Of the game of going on Tickler's ground 

Picking up gold — in reality. 

With extempore carts she never played. 
Or the odds and ends of a Tinker's trade, 
Or little dirt pies and puddings made. 

Like children happy and squalid ;. 
The very puppet she had to pet, 
Like a bait for the " Nix my Dolly " set, 

Was a dolly of gold — and solid ! 



MISS KILMANSEQG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 24 O 

Gold ! and gold ! 't was the burden still ! 
To gain the heiress's early good will 

There was much corruption and bribery ; 
The yearly cost of her golden toys 
Would have given half London's charity-boys 
And charity-girls the annual joys 

Of a holiday dinner at Highbury. 

Bon-bons she ate from the gilt cornet ; 
And gilded queens on St. Bartlemy's day , 

Till her fancy was tinged by her presents — 
And first a goldfinch excited her wish, 
Then a spherical bowl with its golden fish, 

And then two golden pheasants. 

Nay, once she squalled and screamed like wild — 
And it shows how the bias we give to a child 

Is a thing most weighty and solemn : — 
But whence was wonder or blame to spring 
If little Miss K. — after such a swing — 
Made a dust for the flaming gilded thing 

On the top of the Fish-street column ? 

Jj^er Hnucation. 

According to metaphysical creed, 

To the earliest books that children read 

For much good or much bad they are debtors—' 
But before with their ABC they start, 
There are things in morals, as well as art, 
That play a very important part — 

" Impressions before the letters." 

Dame Education begins the pile, 
Mayhap in the graceful Corinthian stylo, 
But alas for the elevation ! 



246 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 

If tlie lady's maid or Gossip the nurse 
With a load of rubbish, or something worse, 
Have made a rotten foundation. 

Even thus with little Miss Kilmansegg, 
Before she learnt her E for egg, 

Ere her governess came, or her masters — 
Teachers of quite a different kind 
Had "crammed" her beforehand, and put her mind 

In a go-cart on golden castors. 

Long before her A B and C, 

They had taught her by heart her L. S. D.. 

And as how she was born a great heiress ; 
And as sure as London is built of bricks, 
My lord would ask her the day to fix 
To ride in a fine gilt coach and six, 

Like Her Worship the Lady Mayoress. 

Instead of stories from Edgeworth's page, 
The true golden lore for our golden age, 

Or lessons from Barbauld and Trimmer, 
Teachino- the worth of virtue and health, 
All that she knew was the virtue of wealth, 
Provided by vulgar nursery stealth 

With a book of leaf-gold for a primer. 

The very metal of merit they tokl, 

And praised her for being as " good as gold ! " 

Till she grew as a peacock haughty ; 
Of money they talked the whole day round. 
And weighed desert like grapes by the pound, 
Till she had an idea from the very sound 

That people with naught were naughty. 

They praised — poor children with nothing at all ! 
Lord ! how you twaddle and waddle and squall, 
Like common-bred geese and ganders ! 



MISS KILMANSEGG ANL> HER PRECIOUS LEG. 247 

What sad little bad little figures you make 
To the rich Miss K., whose plainest seed-cake 
Was stuffed with corianders ! 

The J praised her falls, as well as her Ayalk, 

Flatterers make cream cheese of chalk, 

They praised — how they praised — her very small talk 

As if it fell from a Solon ! 
Or the girl who at each pretty phrase let drop 
A ruby comma, or pearl full-stop, 

Or an emerald semi-colon. 

They praised her spirit, and now and then 
The nurse brought her own little "nevy" Ben, 

To play with the future mayoress ; 
And when he got raps, and taps, and slaps, 
Scratches and pinches, snips and snaps, 

As if from a tigress, or bearess, 
They told him how lords would court that hand 
And always gave him to understand. 
While he rubbed, poor soul, 
His carrotty poll. 

That his hair had been pulled by " a hair ess. 

Such were the lessons from maid and nurse, 
A governess helped to make still worse, 
Giving an appetite so perverse 

Fresh diet whereon to batten — 
Beorinnino' with A B to hold 
Like a royal playbill printed in gold 

On a square of pearl-white satin. 

The books to teach the verbs and nouns, 
x\.nd those about countries, cities and towns 
Instead of their sober drabs and browns, 

Were in crimson silk, with gilt edges ; — • 
Her Butler, and Enfield, and Entick — in short, 



2i8 MISS KILMANSEQG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG, 

Her "early lessons" of everj sort, 

Looked like souvenirs, keepsakes, and pledges. 

Old Johnson shone out in as fine array 

As he did one night when he went to the play ; 

Chambaud like a beau of King Charles's day — 

Lindley Murray in like conditions ; 
Each weary, unwelcome, irksome task, 
Appeared in a fancy dress and a mask — 
If you wish for similar copies, ask 

For Howell and James's editions. 

Novels she read to amuse her mind, 

But always the affluent match-making kind, 

That ends with Promessi Sposi, 
And a father-in-law so wealthy and grand, 
He could give check-mate to Coutts in the Strand ; 

So, along with a ring and posy. 
He endows the bride with Golconda off-hand, 

And gives the groom Potosi. 

Plays she perused — but she liked the best 
Those comedy gentlefolks always possessed 

Of fortunes so truly romantic — 
Of money so ready that right or wrong 
It always is ready to go for a song, 
Throwing it, going it, pitching it strong — 
They ought to have purses as green and long 

As the cucumber called the Gia;antic. 

Then Eastern tales she loved for the sake 
Of the purse of Oriental make, 

And the thousand pieces they put in it ; 
But pastoral scenes on her heart fell cold, 
For Nature with her had lost its hold, 
No field but the Field of the Cloth of Gold 

Would ever have caught her foot in it. 



MISS KILMANSEGG A>s'D HER PRECIOUS LEG. 219 

What more ? She learnt to sing and dance, 
To sit on a liorse, although he should prance. 
And to speak a French not spoken in France 

Any more than at Babel's building ; 
And she painted shells, and flowers, and Turks, 
But her great delight was in fancy works 

That are done with gold or gilding. 

Gold ! still gold ! — the bright and the dead. 
With golden beads, and gold lace, and gold thread, 
She worked in gold, as if for her bread ; 

The metal had so undermined her. 
Gold ran in her thoughts and filled her brain, 
She was golden-headed as Peter's cane 

With which he walked behind her. 

J^zv J^ccinent. 
The horse that carried Miss Kilmansegg, 
And a better never lifted leg, 

Was a very rich bay. called Banker ; 
A horse of a breed and a metal so rare, — 
By Bullion out of an Ingot mare, — 
That for action, the best of figures, and air, 

It made many good judges hanker. 

And when she took a ride in the park. 
Equestrian lord, or pedestrian clerTi. 

Was thrown in an amorous fever. 
To see the heiress how well she sat. 
With her groom behind her. Bob or Nat, 
In green, half smothered with gold, and a hat 

With more gold lace than beaver. 

And then when Banker obtained a pat, 
To see how he arched his neck at that ! 
He snorted with pride and pleasure ! 
Like the steed in the fable so lofty and grand, 



250 AIISS KILMANSBGG AND HEK PRECIOUS LEG. 

Who gave the poor ass to understand 
That he did n't carry a bag of sand, 
But a burden of golden treasure. 

A load of treasure ? — alas ! alas ! 

Had her horse but been fed upon English grasSj 

And sheltered in Yorkshire spinneys, 
Had he scoured the sand with the desert ass, 

Or where the American whinnies — 
But a hunter from Erin's turf and gorse, 
A regular thorough-bred Irish horse, 
Why, he ran away, as a matter of course, 

With a girl worth her weight in guineas ! 

!Mayhap 't is the trick of such pampered nags 
To shy at the sight of a beggar in rags, 

But away, like the bolt of a rabbit. 
Away went the horse in the madness of fright, 
And away went the horsewoman mocking the sight — 
Was yonder blue flash a flash of blue light. 

Or only the skirt of her habit ? 

Away she flies, with the groom behind, — 
It looks like a race of the Calmuck kind, 

When Hymen himself is the starter : 
And the maid rides first in the four-footed strife, 
Riding, striding, as if for her life, 
While the lover rides after to catch him a wife^ 

Although it 's catching a Tartar. 

But the groom has lost his glittering hat ! 
Though he does not sigh and pull up for that — 
Alas ! his horse is a tit for tat 

To sell to a very low bidder — 
His wind is ruined, his shoulder is sprung ; 
Things, though a horse be handsome and young, 

A purchaser will consider, . ; 

I 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 251 
But still flies the heiress throuo;h stones and dust : 



0, for a fall, if fall she must, 

On the gentle lap of Flora ! 
But still, thank Heaven ! she clings to her seat — 
Away ! away ! she could ride a dead heat 
With the dead who ride so fast and fleet 

In the ballad of Leonora ! 

Away she gallops ! — it 's awful work ! 
It 's faster than Turpin's ride to York, 

On Bess, that notable clipper ! 
She has circled the ring ! — she crosses the park ! 
Mazeppa, although he was stripped so stark, 

Mazeppa could n't outstrip her ! 

The fields seem running away with the folks ! 
The elms are having a race for the oaks. 

At a pace that all jockeys disparages ! 
All, all is racing ! the Serpentine 
Seems rushing past like the ^' arrowy Rhine," 
The houses have got on a railway line, 

And are off like the first-class carriages ! 

She '11 lose her life ! she is losing her breath ! 
A cruel chase, she is chasing Death, 

As female shriekings forewarn her : 
And now — as gratis as blood of Guelph — 
She clears that gate, which has cleared itself 

Since then, at Hyde Park Corner ! 

Alas ! for the hope of the Kilmanseggs ! 
"For her head, her brains, her body, and legs, 
Her life 's not worth a copper ! 
Willy-nilly, 
In Piccadilly, 
A hundred hearts turn sick and chilly, 
A hundred voices cry, ' ' Stop her ! " 



252 MISS KILMANSEGa AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 

And one old gentleman stares and stands, 
Shakes his head and lifts his hands, 

And says, " How very improper ! " 

On and on ! — what a perilous run ! 
The iron rails seem all mingling in one. 

To shut out the Green Park scenery ! 
And now the cellar its dangers reveals, 
She shudders — she shrieks — she 's doomed, she feels, 
To be torn by powers of horses and wheels. 

Like a spinner by steam machinery ! 

Sick with horror she shuts her eyes, 
But the very stones seem uttering cries. 

As they did to that Persian daughter, 
When she climbed up the steep vociferous hill, 
Her little silver flagon to fill 

With the magical golden water ! 

" Batter her ! shatter her ! 

Throw and scatter her ! ' ' 
Shouts each stony-hearted chatterer. 

'• Dash at the heavy Dover ! -• 

Spill her ! kill her ! tear and tatter her ! 
Smash her ! crash her ! " (the stones did n't flatter her !) 
" Kick her brains out ! let her blood spatter her ! 

Roll on her over and over ! " 

For so she gathered the awful sense 

Of the street in its past unmacadamized tense, 

As the wild horse overran it, — 
His four heels making the clatter of six, 
Like a devil's tattoo, played with iron sticks 

On a kettle-drum of granite ! 

On ! still on ! she 's dazzled with hints 
Of oranges, ribbons, and colored prints, 



MISS KTLMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 253 

A kaleidoscope jumble of shapes and tints, 

And human faces all flashing, 
Bright and brief as the sparks from the flints 

That the desperate hoof keeps dashing ! 

On and on ! still frightfully fast ! 

Dover-street, Bond-street, all are past ! 

But — yes — no — yes ! — they 're down at last ! 

The Furies and Fates have found them ! 
Down they go with a sparkle and crash, 
Like a bark that 's struck by the lightning flash — 

There 's a shriek — and a sob — 

And the dense dark mob 
Like a billow closes around them ! 



«lf 


* 


■^ 


^ 


* 


* 


* 


* 


^ 


* 


^ 


* 



' • She breathes ! " ' 
"She don't!" 
" She'll recover ! " 
" She won't ! " 
" She 's stirring ! she 's living,' by Nemesis ! " 
Gold, still gold ! on counter and shelf ! 
Golden dishes as plenty as delf ! 
Miss Kilmansegg 's coming again to herself 
On an opulent goldsmith's premises ! 

Gold ! fine gold ! — both yellow and red, 
Beaten, and molten — polished, and dead — • 
To see the gold with profusion spread 

In all forms of its manufacture -' 
But what avails gold to Miss Kilmansegg, 
When the femoral bone of her dexter leg 

Has met with a compound fracture 1 



254 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LB^. 

Gold may soothe Adversity's smart ; 
Nay, help to bind up a broken heart ; 
But to try it on any other part 

Were as certain a disappointment, 
As if one should rub the dish and plate, 
Taken out of a Staffordshire crate — 
In the hope of a golden service of state — 

With Singleton's "Golden Ointment." 

"As the twig is bent, the tree 's inclined," 
Is an adage often recalled to mind, 

Referring to juvenile bias : 
And never so well is the verity seen. 
As when to the weak, warped side we lean, 

While life's tempests and hurricanes try uj^. 

Even thus with Miss K. and her broken limb, 
By a very, very remarkable whim, 

She showed her early tuition : 
While thu buds of character came into blow 
With a certain tinge that served to show 
The nursery culture long ago. 

As the graft is known by fruition ! 

For the king's physician, who nursed the case, 
His verdict gave with an awful face, 

And three others concurred to eo;o!: it : 
That the patient, to give old. Death the slip, 
Like the Pope, instead of a personal trip. 

Must send her leg as a legate. 

The limb was doomed, — it couldn't be saved, - 
And like other people the patient behaved, 
Nay, bravely that cruel parting braved, 



MISS KILMANSBGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 255 

Which makes some persons so falter, 
Tliey rather would part, without a groan, 
With the flesh of their flesh, and bone of their bone, 

They obtained at St. George's altar. 

But when it came to fitting the stump 
With a proxy limb — then flatly and plump 

She spoke, in the spirit olden ; 
She couldn't — she shouldn't — she wouldn't — nave wood 
Nor a leg of cork, if she never stood. 
And she svfore an oath, or something as good. 

The proxy limb should be golden I 

A wooden leg ! what, a sort of peg, 

For your common Jockeys and Jennies ! 
No, no, her mother might worry and plague -— 
Weep, go down on her knees, and beg, 
But nothing would move Miss Kilmansegg ! 
She could — she would have a Golden Leg, 

If it cost ten thousand guineas ! 

Wood indeed, in forest or park, 

With its sylvan honors and feudal bark, 

Is an aristocratical article : 
But split and sawn, and hacked about town. 
Serving all needs of pauper or clown, 
Trod on ! staggered on ! Wood cut down 

Is vulgar — fibre and particle ! 

Vnd cork ! — when the noble cork-tree shades 
i. lovely group of Castilian maids, 

'T is a thing for a song or sonnet ! — 
^ut cork, as it stops the bottle of gin. 
Or bungs the beer — the small beer — in, 
It pierced her heart like a corking-pin, 
T? think of standing upon it ! 



'2bQ MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 

t 

A leg of gold — solid gold throughout, 
Nothing else, whether slim or stout, 

Should ever support her, God willing ! 
She must — she could — she would have her whim; 
Her father, she turned a deaf ear to him — 

He might kill her — she didn't mind killing ! 
He was welcome to cut oif her other limb — 

He might cut her all off with a shilling ! 

All other promised gifts were in vain, 

Golden girdle, or golden chain. 

She writhed with impatience more than pain, 

And uttered " pshaws ! " and " pishes ! "' 
But a leg of gold ! as she lay in bed, 
It danced before her — it ran in her head ! 

It jumped with her dearest wishes 1 

'' Gold — gold — gold ! 0, let it be gold ! " 
Asleep or awake that tale she told. 

And when she grew delirious : 
Till her parents resolved to grant her wish. 
If they melted down plate, and goblet, and dish, 

The case was gettins; so serious. 

So a leg was made in a comely mould, 
Of gold, fine virgin glittering gold. 

As solid as man could make it — 
Solid in foot, and calf, and shank, 
A prodigious sum of money it sank ; 
In fact, 't was a branch of the family bank, 

And no easy matter to break it. 

All sterling metal, — not half-and-half, 

Tho goldsmith's mark was stamped on the calf, — 

'T Avas pure as from Mexican barter ! 
And to make it more costly, just over the knee, 
Where another ligature used to be, 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG- 257 

Was a circle of jewels, worth shillings to see, 
A new-fangled badge of the garter ! 

'T was a splendid, brilliant, beautiful leg, 
Fit for the court of Scander-Beg, 
That precious leg of Miss Kilmansegg ! 

For, thanks to parental bounty, 
Secure from mortification's touch. 
She stood on a member that cost as much 

As a Member for all the County ! 

?^£r J?ame. 

To gratify stern Ambition's whims, 

What hundreds and thousands of precious limbs 

On a field of battle we scatter ! 
Severed by sword, or bullet, or saw, 
Ofi" they go, all bleeding and raw, — 
But the public seems to get the lock-jaw, 

So little is said on the matter ! 

Legs, the tightest that ever were seen. 

The tightest, the lightest, ihat danced on the green ^ 

Cutting capers to sweet Kitty Clover ; 
Shattered, scattered, cut, and bowled down, 
Off they go, worse off for renown, 
A line in the Times, or a talk about town, 

Than the leg that a fly runs over ! 

But the precious Leg of Miss Kilmansegg, 
That gowden, goolden, golden leg. 

Was the theme of all conversation ! 
Had it been a pillar of church and state, 
Or a prop to support the whole dead weight. 
It could not have furnished more debate 

To the heads and tails of the nation ! 

17 



258 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 

East and west, and north and south, 

Though useless for either hunger or drouth, — 

The Leg was in everybody's mouth, 

To use a poetical figure ; 
Rumor, in taking her ravenous swim, 
Saw, and seized on the tempting limb, 

Like a shark on the leg of a nigger. 

Wilful murder fell very dead ; 

Debates in the House were hardly read ; 

In vain the police reports were fed 

With L'ish riots and ?^iimpuses — 
The Leg ! the Leg ! was the great event ; 
Through every circle in life it went. 

Like the leg of a pair of compasses. 

The last new novel seemed tame and flat ; 
The Leg, a novelty newer than that, 

Had tripped up the heels of fiction ' 
It Burked the very essays of Burke, 
And, alas ! hoAv wealth over wit plays the Turk ? 
As a regular piece of goldsmith's work, 

Got the better of Goldsmith's diction. 

'^ A leg of gold ! what, of solid gold ? " 
Cried rich and poor, and young and old, 

And Master and Miss and Madam; 
'T was the talk of 'change — the alley — the banlj 
And with men of scientific rank 
It made as much stir as the fossil shank 

Of a lizard coeval with Adam ! 

Of course with Greenwich and Chelsea elves, 
Men who had lost a limb themselves. 

Its interest did not dwindle ; 
But Bill and Ben, and Jack, and Tom, 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. ^^^^ 

Could hardlj have spun more yarns therefrom, 
If the leg had been a spindle. 

Meanwhile the story went to and fro, 
Till, gathering like the ball of snow, 
By the time it got to Stratford-le-Bow, 

Through exaggeration's touches, 
The heiress and hope of the Kilmanseggs 
Was propped on tvo fine golden legs. 

And a pair of golden crutches ! 

Never had leg so great a run ! 

'T was the '' go " and the " kick " thrown into one? 

The mode — the new thing under the sun ! 

The rage — the fancy — the passion ! 
Bonnets were named, and hats were worn, 
A la golden leg instead of Leghorn, 
And stockings and shoes 
Of golden hues 
Took the lead in the walks of fashion ! 

The Golden Leg had a vast career. 

It was sung and danced — and to show how near 

Low foll}^ to lofty approaches. 
Down to society's very dregs, 
The belles of Wapping wore " Kilmanseggs," 
And St. Giles's beaux^sported golden legs 

In their pinchbeck pins and brooches ! 

?^er J^irst S)U^, 

Supposing the trunk and limbs of man 
Shared, on the allegorical plan, 

By the passions that mark humanity, 
Whichever might claim the head, or heart, 
The stomach, or any other part. 

The leo;s would be seized by Vanity. 



260 MISS KILMANSEGO AND HER PRECIOUS LEa. 

There '« Bardus, a six-foot column of fop, 
A lighthouse without any light atop, 

Whose height would attract beholders, 
If he had not lost some inches clear 
By looking down at his kerseymere, 
Oglino; the limbs he holds so dear, 

Till he got a stoop in his shoulders. 

Talk of art, of science, or books, 
And down go the everlasting looks. 

To his crural beauties so wedded ! 
Cry him, whenever you will, you find • 
His mind in his legs, and his legs in his mind, 
All prongs and folly — in short, a kind 

Of fork — that is fiddle-headed. 

What wonder, then, if Miss Kilmansegg, 
With a splendid, brilliant, beautiful Leg, 
Fit for the court of Scander-Beg, 
Disdained to hide it, like Joan or Meg, 

In petticoats stuffed or quilted? 
Not she ! 't was her convalescent whim 
To dazzle the world with her precious limb, 

Nay, to go a little high-kilted. 

So cards were sent for that sort of mob 
• Where Tartars and A^icans hob-and-nob, 
And the Cherokee talks of his cab and cob 

To Polish or Lapland lovers — 
Cards like that hieroglyphical call 
To a geographical Fancy Ball 

On the recent post-ofiice covers. 

For if lion-hunters — and great ones too — 

Would mob a savage from Latakoo, 

Or squeeze for a glimpse of Prince Le Boo, 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 261 

That unfortunate Sandwich scion — 
Hundreds of first-rate people, no doubt, 
Would gladly, madlj, rush to a rout, 

That promised a Golden Lion ! 

^zx Sanca? 23aU. 

Of all the spirits of evil fame 

That hurt the soul or injure the frame, 

And poison what 's honest and hearty, 
There 's none more needs a Mathew to preach 
A cooling, antiphlogistic speech, 
To praise and enforce 
A temperate course. 
Than the Evil Spirit of Party. 

Go to the House of Commons, or Lords, 
And they seem to be busy with simple words 

In their popular sense or pedantic — 
But, alas ! with their cheers, and sneers, and jeers, 
They 're really busy, whatever appears, 
Putting peas in each other's ears, 

To drive their enemies frantic ! 

Thus Tories love to worry the Whigs, 

Who treat them in turn like Schwalbach pigs, 

Giving them lashes, thrashes, and digs. 

With their writhing and pain delighted — 
But after all that 's said, and more. 
The malice and spite of Party are poor 
To the malice and spite of a party next door, 

To a party not invited. 

On with the cap and out with the light, 
Weariness bids the world good-night. 

At least for the URial season ; 
But, hark ! a clattei of horses' heels ; 



262 MISS KILMANSEGO AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 

And Sleep and Silence are broken on wheels, 
Like Wilful Murder and Treason ! 

Another crash — and the carriage goes — 
Again poor Weariness seeks the repose 

That Nature demands imperious ; 
But Echo takes up the burden now. 
With a rattling chorus of row-de-dow-dow, 
Till Silence herself seems making a row, 

Like a Quaker gone delirious ! 

'T is night — a winter night — and the stars 
Are shining like winkin' — Venus and Mars 
Are rolling along in their golden cars 

Through the sky's serene expansion — 
But vainly the stars dispense their rays, 
Venus and Mars are lost in the blaze 

Of the Kilmanseggs' luminous mansion ! 

Up jumps Fear in a terrible fright ! 
His bed-chamber windows look so brig-ht. 

With light all the square is glutted ! 
Up he jumps, like a sole from the pan, 
And a tremor sickens his inward man, 
For he feels as only a gentleman can 

Who thinks he 's beino- " o-utted." 

• Again Fear settles, all snug and warm ; 

But only to dream of a dreadful storm 
From Autumn's sulphurous locker ; 
But the only electric body that falls 
Wears a negative coat and positive smalls, 
And draws the peal that so appalls 

From the Kilmanseggs' brazen knocker ! 

'T is Curiosity's benefit night — 

And perchance 't is the English second-sight, 



MISS KILMANSEGU AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 2t)b 

But whatever it be, so be it — 
As the friends and guests of Miss Kilmansegg 
Crowd in to look at her Golden Leg, 

As many more 

Mob round the door, 
Jo see them going to see it ! 

In they go — in jackets and cloaks, 
Plumes, and bonnets, turbans, and toques, 

As if to a Congress of Nations : 
Greeks and Malays, with daggers and dirks, 
Spaniards, Jews, Chinese, and Turks — 
Some like original foreign Avorks, 

But mostly like bad translations. 

In they go, and to work like a pack, 

Juan, Moses, and Shachabac, 

Tom, and Jerry, and Springheeled Jack, 

For some of low Fancy are lovers — 
Skirting, zigzagging, casting about. 
Here and there, and in and out, 
With a crush, and a rush, for a full-bodied rout 

In one of the stiffest of covers. 

In they went, and hunted about. 
Open-mouthed like chub and trout. 
And some w^ith the upper lip thrust out, 

Like that fish for routing, a barbel — 
While Sir Jacob stood to welcome the crowd, 
And rubbed his hands, and smiled aloud, 
And bowed, and bowed, and bowed, and bowed 

Like a man who is sawing marble. 

For princes were there, and noble peers ; 
Dukes descended from Norman spears ; 
Earls that dated from early years 



264 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PHECIOUS LEG. 

And lords in vast variety — 
Besides the gentry both new and old — 
For people who stand on legs of gold 

Are sure to stand well with society. 

'' But where — where — where '? " with one accord 
Cried Moses and Mufti, Jack and my Lord, 

Wang-Fong and II Bondocani — 
When slow, and heavy, and dead as a dump, 
They heard a foot begin to stump, 
Thump ! lump ! 
Lump ! thump ! 
Like the spectre ui " Don Giovanni ! " 

And, lo ! the heiress. Miss Kilmansegg, 
With her splendid, brilliant, beautiful leg. 

In the garb of a goddess olden — 
Like chaste Diana going to hunt, 
With a golden spear — which of course was blunt, 
And a tunic looped up to a gem in front, 

To show the Leg that was Golden ! 

Gold ! still gold ! her Crescent behold, 
That should be silver, but would be gold ; 

And her robe's auriferous spangles ! 
Her golden stomacher — how she would melt ! 
Her golden quiver and golden belt. 

Where a golden bugle dangles ! 

And her jewelled garter 7 0, sin ! 0, shame I 
Let Pride and Vanity bear the blame, 
That brings such blots on female fame ! 

But to be a true recorder. 
Besides its thin transparent stuff, 
The tunic was looped quite high enough 

To give a glimpse of the Order ! 



MISS KILMANSEQG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 265 

But what have sin or shame to do 

With a Golden Leg — and a stout one, too ? 

Awaj with all Prudery's panics ! 
That the precious metal, by thick and thin, 
Will cover square acres of land or sin, 
Is a fact made plain 
Again, and again, 
In morals as well as mechanics. 

A few, indeed, of her proper sex. 

Who seemed to feel her foot on their necks, 

And feared their charms Avould meet with checks 

From so rare and spiendid a blazon — 
A few cried " fie ! " — and '' forward" — and " bold ! " 
And said of the Leg it might be gold. 

But to them it looked like brazen ! 

'T was hard, they hinted, for flesh and blood, 
Virtue, and beauty, and all that 's good. 

To strike to mere dross their topgallants — 
But what were beauty, or virtue, or worth. 
Gentle manners, or gentle birth, 
Nay, what the most talented head on earth 

To a Leg worth fifty Talents ! 

But the men sang quite another hymn 

Of glory and praise to the precious limb — 

Age, sordid age, admired the whim. 

And its indecorum pardoned — 
While half of the young — ay, more than half — 
Bowed down and worshipped the Golden Calf, 

Like the Jews when their hearts were hardened. 

A Golden Leg ! what fancies it fired ! 
What golden wishes and hopes inspired ! 
To give but a mere abridgment — 



M6 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LBlx. 

What a leg to leg-bail Embarrassment's serf ! 
What a leg for a leg to take on the turf ! 
What a leg for a marching regiment ! 

A Golden Leg ! — whatever Love sings, 

'T was worth a bushel of " plain gold rings," 

With which the romantic wheedles. 
'T was worth all the legs in stockings and socks- 
'T was a leg that might be put in the stocks, 

N. B. — Not the parish beadle's ! 

And Lady K. nid-nodded her head, 
Lapped in a turban fancj-bred. 
Just like a love-apple, huge and red, 
Some Mussul-womanish mystery ; 
But whatever she meant 
To represent, 
She talked like the Muse of History. 

She told how the filial leg was lost ; 
And then how much the gold one cost ; 

With its weight to a Trojan fraction ; 
And how it took off, and how it put on ; 
And called on Devil, Duke, and Don, 
Mahomet, Moses, and Prester John, 

To notice its beautiful action. 

And then of the Leg she went m quest ; 
And led it where the light was best ; 
And made it lay itself up to rest 

In postures for painters' studies : 
It cost more tricks and trouble, by half. 
Than it takes to exhibit a six-legged calf 

To a boothful of country cuddies. 

Nor yet did the heiress herself omit 
The arts that help to make a hit, 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 201 

And preserve a prominent station. 
She talked and laughed far more than her share; 
And took a part in " Rich and Rare 
Were the Gems she wore " — and the gems were there 

Like a song with an illustration. 

She even stood up with a count of France 
To dance — alas ! the measures we dance 

When Vanity plays the piper ! 
Vanity, Vanity, apt to betray, 
And lead all sorts of legs astray, 
Wood, or metal, or human clay, — 

Since Satan first played the viper ! 

But first she doifed her hunting gear, 

And favored Tom Tug with her golden spear, 

To row with down the river — 
A Bonze had her golden bow to hold ; 
A Hermit, her belt and bugle of gold ; 

And an Abbot her golden quiver. 

And then a space was cleared on the floor, 
And she walked the Minuet de la Cour, 
With all the pomp of a Pompadour ; 

But, although she began andcmte. 
Conceive the faces of all the rout. 
When she finished off with a whirligig bout, 
And the Precious Leg stuck stifily out 

Like the leg of d, figw'a?itc ! 

So the courtly dance was goldenly done, 
And golden opinions, of course, it won 

From all different sorts of people — 
Chiming ding-dong, with flattering phrase. 
In one vociferous peal of praise. 
Like the peal that rings on royal days 

From Loyalty's parish steepb. 



268 MISS KILMAx\^SEGa A?CD HER PRECIOUS LEG. 

And jet, had the leg been one of those 
That dance for bread in flesh-colored hose, 

With Rosina's pastoral bevy, 
The jeers it had met, — the shouts ! the scoff! 
The cutting advice to 'Hake itself off," 

For sounding but half so heavy. 

Had it been a leg like those, perchance. 
That teach little girls and boys to dance, 
To set, poussette, recede, and advance, 

With the steps and figures most proper, — 
Had it hopped for a weekly or quarterly sum, 
How little of praise or grist would have come 

To a mill with such a hopper ! 

But the Leg was none of those limbs forlorn — 
Bartering capers and hops for corn — 
That meet Avith public hisses and scorn. 

Or the morning journal denounces — 
Had it pleased to caper from morn till dusk, 
There was all the music of " Money Musk" 

In its ponderous bangs and bounces. 

But hark ! — as slow as the strokes of a pump, 
Lump, thump ! 
Thump, lump ! 
As the Giant of Castle Otranto might stump 

To a lower room from an upper — 
Down she goes with a noisy dint. 
For, taking the crimson turban's hint, 
A noble lord at the head of the Mint 
Is leading the Leg to supper ! 

But the supper, alas ! must rest untold, 
With its blaze of light and its glitter of gold, 
For to paint that scene of glamour, 



MISS KILMANSEQG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 269 

It would need the great Enchanter's charm, 
Who waves over palace, and cot, and farm, 
An arm like the goldbeater's golden arm 
That wields a golden hammer. 

He — only He — could fitly state 

The Massive Service of Goldeit Plate, 

With the proper phrase and expansion — 
The Rare Selection of Foreign Wines — 
The Alps of Ice and Mountains of Pines, 
The punch in Oceans and sugary shrines. 
The Temple of Taste from Gunter's Designs — 
In short, all that Wealth with a Feast combines, 

In a Splendid Family Mansion. 

Suffice it each masked outlandish guest 
Ate and drank of the very best. 

According; to critical conners — 
And then they pledged the hostess and host, 
But the Golden Leg was the standing toast. 
And, as somebody swore, 
Walked oflf with more 
Than its share of the " hips ! " and honors ! 

" Miss Kilmansego; ! — 



-"ocj 



Full glasses I beg 



Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg ! ' ' 
And away went the bottle careering ! 

Wine in bumpers ! and shouts in peals ! 

Till the Clown did n't know his head from his heels, 

The Mussulman's eyes danced two-some reels, 
And the Quaker was hoarse with cheering ! 

Ji}tx JBrcam. 

Miss Kilmansegg took off her Leg, 
And laid it down like a cribbage-peg. 



270 MISS KILMANSEGKi AND HER PRECIOUS LE&. 

For the rout was done and the riot : 
The square was hushed ; not a sound was heard 
The sky was gray, and no creature stirred, 
Except one little precocious bird, 

That chirped — and then was quiet. 

So still without, — so still within ; — 
It had been a sin 
To drop a pin — 
So intense is silence after a din, 

It seemed like Death's rehearsal ! 
To stir the air no eddy came ; 
And the taper burnt with as still a flame, 
As to flicker had been a burning shame, 
In a calm so universal. 

The time for sleep had come, at last ; 
And there was the bed, so soft, so vast, 

Quite a field of Bedfordshire clover ; 
Softer, cooler, and calmer, no doubt. 
From the piece of work just ravelled out, 
For one of the pleasures of having a rout 

Is the pleasure of having it over. 

No sordid pallet, or truckle mean. 

Of straAV, and rug, and tatters unclean ; 

But a splendid, gilded, carved machine, 

That was fit for a royal chamber. 
On the top was a gorgeous golden wreath; 
And the damask curtains hung beneath. 

Like clouds of crimson and amber. 

Curtains, held up by two little plump things, 
With golden bodies and golden wings, — 
Mere fins for such solidities — 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 271 

Two Cupids, in short. 
Of the regular sort, 
But the housemaid called them ' Cupidities. ' 

No patchwork quilt, all seams and scars, 
But velvet, powdered with golden stars, 

A fit mantle for A^i o-A^-commanders ' 
And the pillow, as Avhite as snow undimmed, 
And as cool as the pool that the breeze has skimmed. 
Was cased in the finest cambric, and trimmed 

With the costliest lace of Flanders. 

And the bed — of the eider's softest down, 
'T was a place to revel, to smother, to drown 
• In a bliss inferred by the poet ; 
For if ignorance be indeed a bliss. 
What blessed ignorance equals this, 
To sleep — and not to know it ? 

O, bed ! 0, bed ! delicious bed ! 

That heaven upon earth to the weary head ; 

But a place that to name would be ill-bred, 

To the head with a wakeful trouble — 
'T is held by such a different lease ! 
To one, a place of comfort and peace, 
All stuffed with the down of stubble geese, 

To another with only the stubble ! 

To one a perfect halcyon nest, 

All calm, and balm, and quiet, and rest, 

And soft as the fur of the cony — 
To another, so restless for body and head, 
That the bed seems borrowed from Nettlebed, 

And the pillow from Stratford the Stony ! 

To the happy, a first-class carriage of ease, 
To the Land of Nod, or where you please ; 



272 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEGt. 

But alas ! for the watchers and weepers, 
Who turn, and turn, and turn again, 
But turn, and turn, and turn in vain, 
With an anxious brain, 
And thoughts in a train 
That does not run upon sleepers ! 

Wide awake as the mousing owl, 
Nio-ht-hawk, or other nocturnal fowl, — 

But more profitless vigils keeping, — 
Wide awake in the dark thej stare, 
Filling with phantoms the vacant air. 
As if that crook-backed tyrant Care 

Had plotted to kill them sleeping. 

And ! when the blessed diurnal light 
Is quenched by the providential night. 

To render our slumber more certain, 
Pity, pity the wretches that weep, 
For they must be wretched who cannot sleep 

When God himself draws the curtain ! 

The careful Betty the pillow beats, 

And airs the blankets, and smooths the sheets, 

And gives the mattress a shaking — 
But vainly Betty performs her part. 
If a ruffled head and a rumpled heart 

As well as the couch want making. 

There 's Morbid, all bile, and verjuice, and nerves, 
Where other people would make preserves, 

He turns his fruits into pickles : 
Jealous, envious, and fretful by day, 
At night, to his own sharp fancies a prey, 
He lies like a hedgehog rolled up the wrong way, 

Tormenting himself with his prickles. 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 273 

But a child — that bids the world good-nighty 
In downright earnest, and cuts it quite — 

A cherub no art can copy, — 
'T is a perfect picture to see him lie 
As if he had supped on dormouse pie, 
(An ancient classical dish, bj the by) 

With sauce of syrup of poppy. 

0, bed ! bed ! bed ! delicious bed ! 

That heaven upon earth to the weary head, 

Whether lofty or low its condition ! 
But, instead of putting our plagues on shelves, 
In our blankets how often we toss ourselves, 
Or are tossed by such allegorical elves 

As Pride, Hate, Greed, and Ambition ! 

The independent Miss Kilmansegg 
Took off her independent Leg 

And laid it beneath her pillow, 
And then on the bed her frame she cast ; 
The time for repose had come at last, 
But long, long after the storm is past 

Rolls the turbid, turbulent billow. 

No part she had in vulgar cares 

That belong to common household affairs — 

Nocturnal annoyances such as theirs 

Who lie with a shrewd surmising 
Tliat while they are couchant (a bitter cup !) 
Their bread and butter are getting up. 

And the coals — confound them ! — are rising. 

No fear she had her sleep to postpone. 
Like the crippled widow who weeps alone. 
And cannot make a doze her own, 

For the dread that mayhap on the morrow, 

18 



274 MISS KILMANSEGtG AND HER PRECIOUS LEQ. 

The true and Christian reading to balk, 
A broker will take up her bed and walk, 
Bj way of curing her sorrow. 

No cause like these she had to bewail : 

But the breath of applause had blown a gale, 

And winds from that quarter seldom fail 

To cause some human commotion ; 
But whenever such breezes coincide 
With the very spring-tide 
Of human pride 
There 's no such swelJ on the ocean ! 

Peace, and ease, and slumber lost, 

She turned, and rolled, and tumbled, and tossed, 

With a tumult that would not settle : 
A common case, indeed, with such 
As have too little, or think too much. 

Of the precious and glittering metal. . 

Gold ! — she saw at her golden foot 
The peer whose tree had an olden root. 
The proud, the great, the learned to boot, 

The handsome, the gay, and the witty — 
The man of science — of arms — of art, 
The man who deals but at Pleasure's mart, 

And the man who deals in the city. 

Gold, still gold — and true to the mould ! 
In the very scheme of her dream it told ; 

For, by magical transmutation. 
From her Leg through her body it seemed to go, 
Till, gold above, and gold below, 
She was gold, all gold, from her little gold toe 

To her organ of Veneration ! 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG, 276 

And still she retained, through Fancy's art. 
The golden bow, and the golden dart, 
With which she had played a goddess's part 

In her recent glorification. 
And still, like one of the self-same brood, 
On a plinth of the self-same metal she stood 

For the whole world's adoration. 

And hymns of incense around her rolled, 
From golden harps and censers of gold, — 
For Fancy in dreams is as uncontrolled 

As a horse without a bridle : 
What wonder, then, from all checks exempt. 
If, inspired by the Golden Leg, she dreamt 

She was turned to a golden idol l 

?lKr Courtship. 

When, leaving Eden's happy land, 
The grieving angel led by the hand 

Our banished fxther and mother, 
Forgotten, amid their awful doom. 
The tears, the fears, and the future's gloom 
On each brow was a wreath of Paradise blotnii, 

That our parents had twined for each other. 

It was only while sitting like figures of stone, 
For the grieving angel had skyward flown, 
As they sat, those two, in the world alone, 

With disconsolate hearts nigh cloven, 
That, scenting the gust of happier hours, 
They looked around for the precious flowers, 
And, lo ! — a last relic of Eden's dear bowers — • 

The chaplet that Love had w^oven ! 

And still, when a pair of lovers meet, 
There 's a sweetness in air, unearthly sweet, 



276 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG, 

That savors still of that happy retreat 
Where Eve by Adam was courted : 
Whilst the joyous thrush, and the gentle dove, 
Wooed their mates in the boughs above, 
And the serpent, as yet, only sported. 

Who hath not felt that breath in the air, 

A perfume and freshness strange and rare, 

A warmth in the light, and a bliss everywhere, 

When young hearts yearn together ? 
All sweets below, and all sunny above, 
! there 's nothing in life like making love, 

Save making hay in fine weather ! 

Who hath not found amongst his flowers 
A blossom too bright for this world of ours, 

Like a rose among snows of Sweden ? 
But, to turn again to Miss Kilmansegg, 
Where must Love have gone to beg. 
If such a thing as a Golden Leg 

Had put its foot in Eden 'I 

And yet — to tell the rigid truth — 

Her favor was sought by age and youth — 

For the prey will find a prowler ! 
She was followed, flattered, courted, addressed, 
Wooed, and cooed, and wheedled, and pressed. 
By suitors from North, South, East, and West; 

Like that heiress, in song, Tibbie Fowler ! 

But, alas ! alas ! for the woman's fate, 
Who has from a mob to choose a mate ! 

'T is a strange and painful mystery ! 
But the more the eggs, the worse the hatch ; 
The more the fish, the worse the catch ; 
The more the sparks, the worse the match ; 

Is a fact in woman's history. 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 277 

Give her between a brace to pick, 

And, majhap, with luck to lielp the trick, 

She will take the Faustus, and leave the Old Nick — 

But, her future bliss to baffle, 
Amongst a score let her have a voice, 
And she "11 have as little cause to rejoice 
As if she had won the " man of her choice" 

In a matrimonial raffle ! 

Thus, even thus, with the heiress and hope. 
Fulfilling the adage of too much rope, 

With so ample a competition. 
She chose the least worthy of all the group, 
Just as the vulture makes a stoop, 
And singles out from the herd or troop 

The beast of the worst condition. 

A foreign count — who came incog.. 
Not under a cloud, but under a fog, 

In a Calais packet's fore-cabin, 
To charm some lady British-born, 
With his eyes as black as the fruit of the thorn, 
And his hooky nose, and his beard half-shorn, 

Like a half-converted Rabbin. 

And because the sex confess a charm 

In the man who has slashed a head or arm, 

Or has been a throat's undoing. 
He was dressed like one of the glorious trade, 
At least when glory is ofi* parade. 
With a stock, and a frock, well trimmed with braid, 

And frogs — that Avent a-wooing. 

Moreover, as counts are apt to do. 

On the left-hand side of his dark surtout. 

At one of those holes that buttons go through, 



278 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HBK PRECIOUS LEG. 

(To be a precise recorder), 
A ribbon he wore, or rather a scrap, 
About an inch of ribbon majhap, 
That one of his rivals, a whimsical chap, 

Described as his " Retail Order." 

And then — and much it helped his chance — 
He could sing, and play first fiddle, and dance, 
Perform charades and proverbs of France — 

Act the tender, and do the cruel ; 
For amongst his other killing parts, 
He had broken a brace of female hearts, 

And murdered three men in duel ! 

Savage at heart, and false of tongue. 
Subtle with age, and smooth to the young, 

Like a snake in his coiling and curling — 
Such was the count — to give him a niche — 
Who came to court that heiress rich, 
And knelt at her foot — one need n't say which — 

Besieging her castle of Sterling. 

With prayers and vows he opened his trench, 
And plied her with English, Spanish, and French, 

In phrases the most sentimental ! 
And quoted poems in high and low Dutch, 
With now and then an Italian touch, 
Till she yielded, without resisting much, 

To homage so continental. 

And then, the sordid bargain to close. 
With a miniature sketch of his hooky ncse, 
And his dear dark eyes, as black as sloes. 
And his beard and whiskers as black as those, 

The lady's consent he requited — 
And instead of the lock that lovers beg. 
The count received from Miss Kilmansegg 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 27? 

A model, in small of her Precious Leg — 
And so the couple were plighted 1 

But. ! the love that gold must crown ! 
Better — better, the love of the clown, 
Who admires Lis lass in her Sunday gown, 

As if all the fairies had dressed her ! 
Whose brain to no crooked thought gives birth, 
Except that he never will part on earth 

With his true love's crooked tester ! 

Alas ! for the love that 's linked w^ith gold ! 
Better — better a thousand times told — 

More honest, happy, and laudable, 
The downright loving of pretty Cis, 
Who -svipes her lips, though there 's nothing amisfi, 
And takes a kiss, and gives a kiss. 

In which her heart is audible ! 

Pretty Cis, so smiling and bright, 

Who loves as she labors, with all her might, 

And without any sordid leaven ! 
Who blushes as red as haw^s and hips, 
Down to her very finger-tips, 
For Roger's blue ribbons — to her, like strips 

Cut out of the azure of heaven ! 

'T was morn — a most auspicious one ! 
From the golden East the golden sun 
Came forth his glorious race to run, 

Through clouds of most splendid tinges ; 
Clouds that lately slept in shade. 
But now seemed made 
Of gold brocade, 
With magnificent golden fringes. 



280 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LiklJ. 

Gold above, and gold below, 

The earth reflected the golden glow, 

From river, and hill, and valley ; 
Gilt by the golden light of morn, 
The Thames — it looked like the Golden Horn, 
And the barge that carried coal or corn 

Like Cleopatra's galley ! 

Brio-ht as a cluster of o-olden-rod, 
Suburban poplars began to nod. 

With extempore splendor furnished ; 
While London was bright with glittering clocks, 
Golden dragons, and golden cocks. 
And above them all. 
The dome of St. Paul, 
With its golden cross and its golden ball, 
Shone out as if newly burnished ! 

And, lo ! for golden hours and joys, 
Troops of glittering golden boys 
Danced along with a jocund noise, 

And their gilded emblems carried ! 
In short, 't was the year's most golden day, 
By mortals called the first of May, 
When Miss Kilmansegg, 
Of the Golden Leg, 
With a golden ring was married ! 

And thousands of children, women, and men, 
Counted the clock from eidit till ten, 

From St. James's sonorous steeple • 
For, next to that interesting job, 
The hanging of Jack, or Bill, or Bob. 
There 's nothing so draws a London mob 

As the noosing of very rich people. 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 281 

And a treat it was for a mob to behold 
The bridal carriage that blazed with gold ! 
And the footmen tall, and the coachman bold, 

In liveries so resplendent — 
Coats jou wondered to see in place, 
They seemed so rich with golden lace, 

That thej might have been independent. 

Coats that made those menials proud 
Gaze with scorn on the dingy crowd, 

From their o-ikled elevations ; 
Not to forget that saucy lad 
(Ostentation's favorite cad). 
The page, who looked, so splendidly clad. 

Like a page of the " Wealth of Nations.' 

But the coachman carried off the state. 
With what was a Lancashire body of late 

Turned into a Dresden Fig;ure ; 
With a bridal nosegay of early bloom, 
About the size of a birchen broom, 
And so huge a white favor, had Gog been groom, 

He need not have worn a bigger. 

And then to see the groom ! the count ! 
With foreign orders to such an amount, 

And whiskers so wild — nay, bestial ; 
He seemed to have borrowed the shaggy hair 
As well as the stars of the Polar Bear, 

To make him look celestial ! 

And then — Great Jove ! — the struggle, the crush 
The screams, the heaving, the awful rush. 

The swearing, the tearing, and fighting, — 
The hats and bonnets smashed like an eofg. — 
To catch a glimpse of the Golden Leg, 



282 MISS KILMANSEGa AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 

Which, between the steps and Miss Kilmansegg, 
Was fully displayed in alighting ! 

From the golden ankle up to the knee 
There it was for the mob to see ! 
A shocking act had it chanced to be 

A crooked leg or a skinny : 
But although a magnificent veil she wore, 
Such as never was seen before, 
In case of blushes, she blushed no more 

Than George the First on a guinea ! 

Another step, and, lo ! she was launched I 
All in white, as brides are blanched^ 

With a wreath of most wonderful splendor — 
Diamonds, and pearls, so rich in device, 
That, according to calculation nice, 
Her head was worth as royal a price 

As the head of the Young Pretender. 

Bravely she shone — and shone the more 

As she sailed through the crowd of squalid and poor. 

Thief beo;2;ar, and tatterdemalion — 
Led by the count, with his sloe-black eyes 
Bright with triumph, and some surprise, 
Like Anson on making sure of his prize 

The fimous Mexican galleon ! 

Anon came Lady K., with her face 
Quite made up to act with grace, 

But she cut the performance shorter 
For instead of pacing stately and stiff, 
At the stare of the vulgar she took a miff, 
And ran^ full speed, into church, as if 

To get married before her daughter. 



MISS KILMANSEOa AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 283 

But Sir Jacob walked more slowly, and bowed 
Right and left to the gaping crowd, 

Wherever a glance was seizable ; 
For Sir Jacob thought he bowed like a Guelph^ 
And therefore bowed to imp and elf, 
And would gladlj have made a bow to himself, 

Had such a bow been feasible. 

And last — and not the least of the sight, 
Six "Handsome Fortunes," all in white, 
Came to help in the marriage rite, — 

And rehearse their own hjmeneals ; 
And then, the bright procession to close. 
They were followed by just as many beaux, 

Quite fine enough for ideals. 

Glittering men, and splendid dames, 

Thus they entered the porch of St. James', 

Pursued by a thunder of laughter ; 
For the beadle was forced to intervene, 
For Jim the Crow, and his Mayday Queen, 
With her gilded ladle, and Jack i' the Green, 

Would fain have followed after ! 

Beadle-like he hushed the shout ; 

But the temple was full " inside and out," 

And a buzz kept buzzing all round about 

Like bees when the day is sunny — 
A buzz universal that interfered 
With the rite that ought to have been revered, 
As if the couple already were smeared 

With Wedlock's treacle and honey ! 

Yet Wedlock 's a very awful thing I 
'T is something like that feat in the ring 
Which retjuires good nerve to do it — 



284 MISS KILMANSEGd AND ilBR PllBCIOUS LEG. 

When one of a " Grand Equestrian Troop" 
Makes a jump at a gilded hoop, 

Not certain at all 

Of what may befall 
After his getting through it ! 

But the count he felt the nervous work 
No more than any polygamous Turk, 

Or bold piratical skipper, 
Who, during his buccaneering search, 
Would as soon engage '' a hand " in church 

As a hand on board his clipper ! 

And how did the bride perform her part'? 
Like any bride who is cold at heart. 

Mere snow with the ice's glitter ; 
What but a life of winter for her ! 
Bright but chilly, alive without stir, 
So splendidly comfortless, — just like a fir 

When the frost is severe and bitter. 

Such were the future man and wife ! 
Whose bale or bliss to the end of life 
A few short words were to settle — 
Wilt thou have this woman 7 

I will — and then, 
Wilt thou have this man 7 
I will, and Amen — 
And those two were one flesh, in the angels' ken, 
Except one Leg — that was metal. 

Then the names were signed — and kissed the kiss 
And the bride, who came from her coach a miss, 

As a countess walked to her carriage — 
Whilst Hymen preened his plumes like a dove, 
And Cupid fluttered his wings above, 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEO. 285 

lu the shape of a fl j — as little a Love 
As ever looked in at a marriage ! 

Another crash — and away they dashed, 
And the gilded carriage and footmen flashed 

From the eyes of the gaping people — 
"Who turned to gaze at the toe-and-heel 
Of the golden boys beginning a reel, 
To the merry sound of a Avedding-peal 

From St. James's musical steeple. 

Those wedding-bells ! those wedding-bells 1 
How sweetly they sound in pastoral dells 

From a tower in an ivy-green jacket ! 
Eut town-made joys how dearly they cost ; 
And after all are tumbled and tost, 
Like a peal from a London steeple, and lost 

In town-made riot and racket. 

The wedding-peal, how sweetly it peals 
With grass or heather beneath our heels, — 

For bells are Music's laughter ! — 
But a London peal, well mingled, be sure, 
With vulgar noises and voices impure, 
What a harsh and discordant overture 

To the harmony meant to come after ! 

But hence with Discord — perchance, too soon 
To cloud the face of the honeymoon 

With a dismal occultation ! — 
Whatever Fate's concerted trick. 
The countess and count, at the present nick. 
Have a chicken and not a crow to pick 

At a sumptuous cold collation. 

A breakfast — no unsubstantial mess, 
But one in the style of good Queen Bess, 
Who — hearty as hippocampus — 



'■J 

I 



286 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PKECIOUS LEG. 

Broke her fast with ale and beef, 
Instead of toast and the Chinese leaf, 
And in lieu of anchovy — grampus 

A breakfast of fowl, and fish, and flesh, 
Whatever was sweet, or salt, or fresh, 

With wines the most rare and curious — 
Wines, of the richest flavor and hue ; 
With fruits from the worlds both Old and New ; 
And fruits obtained before they were due 

At a discount most usurious. 

For wealthy palates there be, that scout 
What is in season, for what is ont. 

And prefer all precocious savor ; 
For instance, early green peas, of the sort 
That costs some four or five guineas a quart ; 

Where the Mi?it is the principal flavor. 

And many a wealthy man was there. 
Such as the wealthy city could spare, 

To put in a portly appearance — 
Men whom their fathers had helped to gild : 
And men who had had their fortunes to build, 
And — much to their credit — had richly filled 

Their purses by piirsy-verqnce. 

Men, by popular rumor at least. 
Not the last to enjoy a feast ! 

And truly they were not idle ! 
Luckier far than the chestnut tits, 
Which, down at the door, stood champing their bits, 

At a diiferent sort of bridle. 

For the time was come — and the whiskered count 
Helped his bride in the carriage to mount, 
And fiiin would the Muse deny it, 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 287 

But the crowd, including two butchers in blue, 
(The regular killing Whitechapel hue,) 
Of her Precious Calf had as ample a view, 
As if they had come to buy it ! 

Then away ! away ! with all the speed 
That golden spurs can give to the steed, — 
Both yellow boys and guineas, indeed, 

Concurred to urge the cattle, — 
Away they went, with favors white, 
Yellow jackets, and pannels bright, 
And left the mob, like a mob at night, 

Agape at the sound of a rattle. 

Away ! away ! they rattled and rolled, 

The count, and his bride, and her Leg of Gold — 

That faded charm to the charmer ! 
Aw^ay, — through Old Brentford rang the din, 
Of wheels and heels, on their way to win 
That hill, named after one of her kin 

The Hill of the Golden Farmer ! 

Gold, still gold — it flew like dust ! 

It tipped the post-boy, and paid the trust ; 

In each open palm it was freely thrust ; 

There was nothing but giving and taking ! 
And if gold could insure the future hour, 
What hopes attended that bride to her bower ; 
But, alas ! even hearts Avith a four-horse power 

Of opulence end in breaking ! 

The moon — the moon, so silver and ccJd 
Her fickle temper has oft been told, 

Now shady — now bright and sunny — 
But, of all the lunar things that change. 
The one that shows most fickle and strange, 



288 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 

And takes the most eccentric range, 
Is the moon — so called — of honey ! 

To some a full-grown orb revealed, 
As big and as round as Nerval" s shield, 

And as bright as a burner Bude-lighted ; 
To others as dull, and dingj, and damp, 
As any oleaginous lamp, 
Of the regular old parochial stamp. 

In a London fog benighted. 

To the loving, a bright and constant sphere, 
That makes earth's commonest scenes appear 

All poetic, romantic, and tender ; 
Hanging with jewels a cabbage-stump, 
And investing a common post, or a pump, 
A currant-bush or a gooseberry cluDip, 

With a halo of dreamlike splendor. 

A sphere such as shone from Italian skies. 
In Juliet's dear, dark, liquid eyes. 

Tipping trees with its argent braveries — 
And to couples not favored with Fortune's boons 
One of the most delightful of moons, 
For it brightens their pewter platters and spoons 

Like a silver service of Savory's ! 

For all is bright, and beauteous, and clear, 
And the meanest thing most precious and dear, 

When the magic of love is present : 
Love, that lends a sweetness and grace 
To the humblest spot and the plainest face — 
Tha.t turns Wilderness Row into Paradise Place^ 

And Garlic Hill to Mount Pleasant ! 

Love that sweetens sugarless tea, 
And makes contentment and joy agree 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PEECIOUS LEG. 289 

With the coarsest boardino; and bedding; ; 
Love, that no golden ties can attach, 
But nestles under the humblest thatch, 
And ^vill flj away from an emperor's match 

To dance at a penny wedding ! 

0, happy, happy, thrice happy state, 
When sucli a bright planet governs the fate 

Of a pair of united lovers ! 
'T is theirs, in spite of the serpent's hiss, 
To enjoy the pure primeval kiss 
With as much of the old original bliss 

As mortality ever recovers ! 

There 's strength in double joints, no doubt. 

In double X Ale, and Dublin Stout, 

That the sino;le sorts know nothino; about — 

And a fist is strongest when doubled — 
And double aqua-fortis, of course, 
And double soda-water, perforce, 

Are the strongest that ever bubbled ! 

There 's double beauty whenever a swan 
Swims on a lake, with her double thereon : 
And ask the gardener, Luke or John, 

Of the beauty of double-blo^ving — 
A double dahlia delights the eye ; 
And it 's far the loveliest sight in the sky 

When a double rainbow is glow^ing ! 

There 's warmth in a pair of double soles; 
As well as a double allowance of coals — 

In a coat that is double-breasted — 
In double windows and double doors ; 
And a double U wund is blest by scores 

For its warmth to the tender-chested. 

19 



290 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LB(ic 

There 's two-fold sweetness in double-pipes ; 
And a double barrel and double snipes 

Give the sportsman a duplicate pleasure : 
There 's double safety in double locks ; 
And double letters bring cash for the box ; 
And all the world knows that double knocks 

Are gentility's double measure. 

There 's a double sweetness in double rhymes 
And a double at whist and a double Times 

In profit are certainly double — 
By doubling, the hare contrives to escape : 
And all seamen delight in a doubled cape, 

And a double-reefed topsail in trouble. 

There 's a double chuck at a double chin, 

And of course there 's a double pleasure therein. 

If the parties are brought to telling : 
And, however our Dennises take offence, 
A double meaning shows double sense ; 
And if proverbs tell truth, 
A double tooth 
Is Wisdom's adopted dwelling ! 

But double wisdom, and pleasure, and sense, 
Beauty, respect, strength, comfort, and thence 

Through whatever the list discovers, 
They are all in the double blessedness summed 
Of what was formerly double-drummed, 

The marriage of two true lovers ! 

Now the Kilmansegg Moon — it must be told — 
Though instead of silver it tipped with gold — 
Shone rather wan, and distant, and cold, 

And, before its days were at thirty, 
Such gloomy clouds began to collect 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HEK PKECIOUS LEG. 291 



With an ominous ring of ill effect, 
As gave but too much cause to expect 
Such weather as seamen call dirty ! 

And yet the moon was the "young May moon," 
And the scented hawthorn had blossomed soon, 

And the thrush and the blackbird were singing — 
The snow-white lambs were skipping in play, 
And the bee was humming a tune all day 
To flowers as welcome as flowers in May, 

And the trout in the stream was springing ! 

But what were the hires of the blooming earth, 
Its scents — its sounds — or the music and mirth, 

Or its furred or its feathered creatures, 
To a pair in the world's last sordid stage, 
Who had never looked into Nature's pa-ge. 
And had strange ideas of a Golden Age, 

Without any Arcadian features ? 

And what were joys of the pastoral kind 

To a bride — town-made — with a heart and mind 

With simplicity ever at battle '? 
A bride of an ostentatious race. 
Who, thrown in the Golden Farmer's place. 
Would have trimmed her shepherds with golden lace^ 

And gilt the horns of her cattle. 

She could not please the pigs with her whim, 
And the sheep would n't cast their eyes at a limb 

For which she had been such a martyr : 
The deer in the park, and the colts at grass, 
And the cows, unheeded let it pass : 
And the ass on the common was such an ass, 
That he wouldn't have swapped 
The thistle he cropped 
For her Leg, including the Garter ! 



292 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 

She hated lanes, and she hated fields — 
She hated all that the country yields — 

And barely knew turnips from clover : 
She hated walking in any shape, 
And a country stile was an awkward scrape, 
Without the bribe of a mob to gape 

At the Leg in clambering over ! 

blessed Nature, " rus ! rus ! '' 
Who cannot sigh for the country thus, 

Absorbed in a worldly torpor — 
Who does not yearn for its meadow-sweet breath, 
Untainted by care, and crime, and death. 
And to stand sometimes upon grass or heath — 

That soul, spite of gold, is a pauper ! 

But to hail the pearly advent of Morn, 
And relish the odor fresh from the thorn, 

She was far too pampered a madam — 
Or to joy in the daylight waxing strong. 
While, after ages of sorrow and wrong, 
The scorn of the proud, the misrule of the strong, 
And all the woes that to man belong, 
The lark still carols the self-same song 

That he did to the uncurst Adam ! 

The Lark ! she had given all Leipsic's flocks 
For a Vauxhall tune in a musical box ; 

And as for the birds in the thicket, 
Thrush or ousel in leafy niche, 
The linnet or finch, she was far too rich 
To care for a morning concert to which 

She was welcome without any ticket. 

Gold, still gold, her standard of old, 
AlU pastoral joys were tried by gold, 
Or by fancii^s golden and crural — 



MISS KILMANSEUG AND HER PKECIOUS LEG. 293 

Till ere she had passed one week unblest, 
As her agricultural uncle" s guest, 
Her mind was made up and fully imprest 
That felicity could not be rural ! 

And the count 'I — to the snow-white lambs at play, 
And all the scents and the sights of May, 

And the birds that warbled their passion, 
His ears, and dark eyes, and decided nose, 
Were as deaf and as blind and as dull as those 
That overlook the Bouquet de Rose, 
The Huile Antique, 
And Parfum Unique, 
In a barber's Temple of Fashion. 

To tell, indeed, the true extent 
Of his rural bias, so far it went 

As to covet estates in ring fences — 
And for rural lore he had learned in town 
That the country was green turned up with brown, 
And garnished with trees that a man might cut down 

Instead of his own expenses. 

And yet, had that fault been his only one, 
The pair might have had few quarrels or none, 

For their tastes thus far were in common ; 
But faults he had that a haughty bride 
With a Golden Leg could hardly abide — 
Faults that would even have roused the pride 

Of a far less metalsome woman ! 

It was early days indeed for a wife, 
In the very spring of her married life. 
To be chilled by its wintrv wenliior — 

?;-V ^ ■■■•■■■■ :••:•.: •:■•.'■• ■■ '; ■■ . 



294 MISS KILMANSEGQ AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 

Enjoying their " moon and honey for two," 
They were scarcely seen together ! 

In vain she sat with her Precious Leg 
A little exposed a la Kilmansegg, 

And rolled her eyes in their sockets ! 
He left her in spite of her tender regards, 
And those loving murmurs described by bards, 
For the rattling of dice and the shuffling of cards, 

And the poking of balls into pockets ! 

Moreover he loved the deepest stake 

And the heaviest bets the players would make ; 

And he drank — the reverse of sparely, — 
And he used strange curses that made her fret ; 
And when he played Avith herself at piquet, 
She found, to her cost, 
For she always lost. 
That the count did not count quite fairly. 

And then came dark mistrust and doubt, 
Gathered by worming his secrets out, 

And slips in his conversations — 
Fears, which all her peace destroyed. 
That his title was null — his coffers were void — 
And his French chateau was in Spain, or enjoyed 

The most airy of situations. 

But still his heart — if he had such a part — 
She — only she — might possess his heart, 

And hold his aifections in fetters — 
Alas ! that hope, like a crazy ship, 
Was forced its anchor and cable to slip 
When, seduced by her fears, she took a dip 

In his private papers and letters. 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 295 

Letters that told of dangerous leagues ; 
And notes that hinted as many intrigues 

As the count's in the " Barber of Seville " — 
In short, such mysteries came to light, 
That the countess-bride, on the thirtieth nio-ht. 
Woke and started up in affright, 
And kicked and screamed with all her might, 
And finally fainted away outright, 

For she dreamt she had married the Devil ! 

Who hath not met with home-made bread, 
A heavy compound of putty and lead — 
And home-made wines that rack the head, 

And home-made liqueurs and waters 7 
Home-made pop that will not foam, 
And home-made dishes that drive mie from home^ 
Not to name each mess, 
For the face or dress, 
Home-made by the homely daughters 7 

Home-made physic, that sickens the sick ; 
Thick for thin and thin for thick ; — 
In short, each homogeneous trick 

For poisoning domesticity 7 
And since our Parents, called the First, 
A little family sijuabble nurst. 
Of all our evils the worst of the worst 

Is home-made infelicity. 

There 's a golden bird that claps its wings, 
And danc^es for joy on its perch, and sings 

With a Persian exultation : 
For the sun is shining into the room, 
And brightens up tlie carpet-bloom, 



296 MISS KILMANSEGG AND IIER PRECIOUS LES. 

As if it were new, bran-new from the loom, 
Or the lone nun's fabrication. 

And thence the glorious radiance flames 
On pictures in massy gilded frames 
Enshrining, however, no painted dames, 

But portraits of colts and fillies — 
Pictures hanging on walls which shine, 
In spite of the bard's familiar line, 

With clusters of " gilded lilies." 

And still the flooding sunlight shares 
Its lustre with gilded sofas and chairs. 

That shine as if freshly burnished — 
And gilded tables, with glittering stocks 
Of gilded china, and golden clocks, 
Toy, and trinket, and musical box, 

That Beace and Paris have furnished. 

And, lo ! with the brightest gleam of all 
The glowing sunbeam is seen to fall 

On an object as rare as splendid — 
The golden foot of the Golden Leg 
Of the countess — once Miss Kilmansegg — 

But there all sunshine is ended. 

Her cheek is pale, and her eye is dim. 
And downward cast, yet not at the limb, 

Once the centre of all speculation ; 
But downward drooping in comfort's dea-rth. 
As gloomy thoughts are drawn to the earth 
Whence human sorrows derive their birth — 

By a moral gravitation. 

Her golden hair is out of its braids, 
And her sighs betray the o-1oomv sh-idcs 

Ti::l :;■/' •.■• '■ ;' ' , .' , :,. 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 297 

And tears are falling that catch a gleam 
So bright as they drop in the sunny beam, 
That tears of aqua regia they seem 
The water that gold dissolves in ! 

Yet, not in filial grief were shed 

Those tears for a mother's insanity ; 
Nor yet because her fither was dead, 
For the bowing Sir Jacob had bowed his head 

To Death — with his usual urbanity ; 
The waters that down her visage rilled 
"Were drops of unrectified spirit distilled 

From the limbec of Pride and Vanity. 

Tears that fell alone and uncheckt, 

Without relief, and without respect, 

Like the fabled pearls that the pigs neglect, 

When pigs have that opportunity — 
And of all the griefs that mortals share, 
The one that seems the hardest to bear 

Is the grief without community. 

How blessed the heart that has a friend 
A sympathizing ear to lend 

To trou1)les too great to smother ! 
For as ale and porter, when flat, are restored 
Till a sparkling, bubbling head they afford. 
So sorrow is cheered by being poured 

From one vessel into another. 

But friend or gossip she had not one 

To hear the vile deeds that the count had done, 

How night after night he rambled ; 
And how she had learned by sad degrees 
That he drank, and smoked, and, worse than these, 

That he "swindled, intrigued, and gambled." 



298 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LE(x. 

How lie kissed the maids, and sparred with John ; 
And came to bed with his garments on ; 

With other offences as heinous — 
And brought sti^ange gentlemen home to dine, 
That he said were in the Fancy line, 
And they fancied spirits instead of wine, 

And called her lap-dog " Wenus ! " 

Of " making a book " how he made a stir, 
But never had written a line to her, 

Once his idol and Cara Sposa : 
And how he had stormed, and treated her ill, 
Because she refused to go down to a mill, 
She didn't know where, but remembered still 

That the miller's name was Mendoza. 

How often he waked her up at night. 
And oftener stifl by the morning light, 

Reeling home from his haunts unlawful ; 
Singing songs that should n't be sung, 
Except by beggars and thieves unhung — 
Or volleying oaths, that a foreign tongue 

Made still more horrid and awful ! 

How oft, instead of otto of rose. 

With vulgar smells he offended her nose, 

From gin, tobacco, and onion ! 
And then how wildly he used to stare ! 
And shake his fist at nothing, and swear, — 
And pluck by the handful his shaggy hair. 
Till he looked like a study of Giant Despair 

For a new edition of Bunyan ! 

For dice will run the contrary way, 
As well is known to all who play, 

And cards will conspire as in treason : 
And what with keepmg a hunting-box, 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 299 

Following fox — 
Friends in flocks, 
Burgundies, Hocks, 
From London Docks ; 
Stultz's frocks, 
Manton and Nock's 
Barrels and locks, 
Shooting blue rocks, 
Trainers and jocks, 
Buskins and socks, 
Pugilistical knocks. 
And fighting-cocks, 
If he found himself short in funds and stocks, 
These rhymes will furnish the reason ! 

His friends, indeed, were falling away — 
Friends who insist on play or pay — 
And he feared at no very distant day 

To be cut by Lord and by Cadger, 
As one who was gone or going to smash. 
For his checks no longer drew the cash, 
Because, as his comrades explained in flash 

" He had overdraAvn his badger." 

Gold ! gold — alas ! for the gold 
Spent where souls are bought and sold, 

In Vice's Walpurgis revel ! 
Alas ! for mufiles, and bulldogs, and guns, 
The leg that walks, and the leg that runs, 
All real evils, though Fancy ones, 
When they lead to debt, dishonor, and duns, 

Nay, to death, and perchance the Devil ! 

Alas ! for the last of a Golden race ! 
Had she cried her wrongs in the market-place, 
She had warrant for all her clamor — 



300 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 

For the worst of rogues, and brutes, and rakes, 
Was breaking her heart bj constant aches, 
With as little remorse as the pauper who breaks 
A flint with a parish hammer ! 

^ev Xast W^m. 

Now the Precious Leg, while cash was flush, 
Or the count's acceptance worth a rush, 

Had never excited dissension : 
But no sooner the stocks began to fall, 
Than, without anj ossification at all, 
The limb became what people call 

A perfect bone of contention. 

For altered days brought altered ways, 
And instead of the complimentary phrase, 

So current before her bridal — 
The countess heard, in language low, 
That her Precious Leg was precious slow, 
A good 'un to look at but bad to go. 

And kept quite a sum lying idle. 

That instead of playing musical airs, 

Like Colin' s foot in going up-stairs — 

As the wife in the Scottish ballad declares — 

It made an infernal stumping. 
Whereas a member of cork, or wood. 
Would be lighter and cheaper, and quite as good, 

Without the unbearable thumping. 

Perhaps she thought it a decent thing 
To show her calf to cobbler and king, 

But nothing could be absurder — 
While none but the crazy would advertise 
Their gold before their servants' eyes, 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 301 

Who of course some night would make it a prize, 
Bj a shocking and barbarous murder. 

But spite of hint, and threat, and scoff. 

The Leg kept its situation : 
For legs are not to be taken off 

By a verbal amputation. 
And mortals Avhen they take a whim^ 
The greater the folly the stiffer the limb 

Th_at stands upon it or by it — 
So the countess, then Miss Kilmansegg, 
At her marriage refused to stir a peg, 
Till the lawyers had fastened on her leg, 

As fast as the law could tie it. 

Firmly then — and more firmly yet — 

With scorn for scorn, and with threat for threat, 

The proud one confronted the cruel : 
And loud and bitter the quarrel arose, 
Fierce and merciless — one of those, 
With spoken daggers, and looks like blows, 

Li all but the bloodshed a duel ! 

Rash, and wild, and wretched, and wrong. 
Were the words that came from weak and strong^ 

Till, maddened for desperate matters, 
Fierce as tigress escaped from her den, 
She flew to her desk — 't was opened — and then, 
In the time it takes to try a pen, 
Or the clerk to utter his slow Amen, 

Her Will was in fifty tatters ! 

But the count, instead of curses wild. 
Only nodded his head and smiled. 
As if at the spleen of an angry child ; 



802 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PEECIOUS LEG. 

But the calm was deceitful and sinister ! 
A lull like the lull of the treacherous sea — 
For Hate in that moment had sworn to be 
The Golden Leg's sole Legatee, 

And that very night to administer ! 

fj^tv 3Beati). 

'T is a stern and startling thing to think 
How often mortality stands on the brink 

Of its grave without any misgiving : 
And jet, in this slippery world of strife, 
In the stir of human bustle so rife 
There are daily sounds to tell us that Life 

Is dying, and Death is living ! 

Ay, Beauty the girl, and Love the boy, 
Bright as they are with hope and joy, 

How their souls would sadden instanter, 
To remember that one of those wedding bells 
Which ring so merrily through the dells. 
Is the same that knells 
Our last farcAvells, 
Only broken into a canter ! 

But breath and blood set doom at naught — 
How little the wretched countess thought. 
When at night she unloosed her sandal. 
That the Fates had woven her burial-cloth, 
And that Death, in the shape of a death's-hoitd motk 
Was fluttering round her candle ! 

As she looked at her clock of or-molu, 

For the hours she had gone so wearily through 

At the end of a day of trial — 
How little she saw in her pride of prime 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. SOS 

The dart of death in the hand of Time — 
That hand which moved on the dial ! 

As she went with her taper up the stair, 
How little her swollen eye was aware 

That the Shadow which followed was double t 
Or when she closed Iier chamber door, 
It was shutting out, and forevermore, 

The world — and its worldly trouble. 

Little she dreamt, as she laid aside 

Her jewels — after one glance of pride — 

They were solemn bequests to Vanity — 
Or when her robes she began to doff, 
That she stood so near to the putting off 

Of tlie flesh- that clothes humanity. 

And when she quenched the taper's light. 
How little she thought, as the smoke took flight 
That her day was done — and merged in a night 
Of dreams and duration uncertain — 
Or, along with her own, 
That a hand of bone 
Was closing mortality's curtain ! 

But life is SAveet, and mortality blind, 
And youth is hopeful, and Fate is kind 

Tn concealing the day of sorrow ; 
And enough is the present tense of toil — • 
For this world is, to all, a stifiish soil — 
And the mind flies back with a glad recoil 

From the debts not due till to-morrow. 

Wherefore else does the spirit fly 
And bid its daily cares good-by. 
Along with its daily clothing? 
Just as the felon condemned to die — 



804 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PKECIOUS LEG. 

"With a very natural loathing — 
Leaving the sheriff to dream of ropes, 
From his gloomj cell in a vision elopes. 
To caper on sunny greens and slopes, 

Instead of the dance upon nothing. 

Thus, even thus, the countess slept, 
\A'hile Death still nearer and nearer crept, 
Like the Thane who smote the sleeping- - 
• But her mind was busy with early joys, 
Her golden treasures and golden toys. 
That flashed a bright 
And golden light 
Under lids still red with weeping. 

The golden doll that she used to hug ! 
Her coral of gold, and the golden mug ! 

Her godfather's golden presents ! 
The golden service she had at her meals. 
The golden watch, and chain, and seals, 
Her golden scissors, and thread, and reels, 

And her golden fishes and pheasants ! 

The golden guineas in silken purse — 

And the golden legends she heard from her nurse, 

Of the Mayor in his gilded carriage — 
And London streets that were paved with gold — 
And the golden eggs that were laid of old — 
With each golden thing 
To the ij;olden rino; 
At her own auriferous marriage 1 



O" 



And still the golden light of the sun 
Through her golden dream appeared to run, 
Though the night that roared without was one 
To terrify seamen or gypsies — 



MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PEECIOUS LEO. oU^ 

While the moon, as if in malicious mirth. 
Kept peeping down at the ruffled earth, 
As though she enjoyed the tempest's birth, 
In i-evenge of her old eclipses. 

But vainly, vainly the thunder fell, 

For the soul of the sleeper was under a spell 

That time had lately embittered — 
The count, as once at her foot he knelt — 
That foot which now he wanted to melt ! 
But — hush! — 't was a stir at her pillow she felt — 

And some object before her glittered. 

'T was the Golden Lee* ! — she knew its orleam ! 
And up she started, and tried to scream, — 

But even in the moment she started — 
Down came the limb with a frightful smash, 
And, lost in the universal flash ^ 

That her eyeballs made at so mortal a crash, 

The spark, called Vital, departed ! 

4L> ^ ^ J£, 

"A* "TT •K" 'Tv' 

Gold, still gold! hard, yellow, and cold. 

For gold she had lived, and she died for gold — - 

By a golden weapon — not oaken ; 
In the morning they found her all alone — 
Stiff, and bloody, and cold as stone — 
But her Leg, the Golden Leg, was gone, 

And the '• o'olden bowl was broken ! " 



o 



Gold — still gold ! it haunted her yet — 
At the Golden Lion the inquest met — 

Its foreman, a carver and gilder — 
And the jury debated from twelve till three 
What the verdict ought to be 

■20 



306 A MORNING THOUGHT. 

And they brought it in as Felo-de-Se, 
" Because her own leg had killed her ! " 

Gold! gold! gold! gold! 
Bright and yellow, hard and cold, 
Molten, graven, hammered and rolled ; 
Heavy to get, and light to hold ; 
Hoarded, bartered, bought, and sold, 
Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled : 
Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old 
To the very verge of the church-yard mould ; 
Price of many a crime untold : 
Gold ! gold ! gold ! gold ! 
Good or bad a thousand-fold ! 

How widely its agencies vary — 
To save — to ruin — to curse — to bless — 
As even its minted coins express. 
Now stamped with the image of good Queen Bess, 

And now of a Bloody Mary. 



A MORNING THOUGHT. 

No more, no more will I resign 
My couch so warm and soft, 

To trouble trout with hook and line^ 
That will not spring aloft. 

With larks appointments one may fix 
To greet the dawning skies, 

But hang the getting up at six 
For fish that will not rise ! 



A TALE OF A TRUMPET. ' 



" Old woman, old woman, will you go a-shearing t 
Speak a little louder, for I 'm very hard of hearing.'* 

Old Ballad. 



Or all old women hard of hearing, 

The deafest, sure, was Dame Eleanor Spearing ! 

On her head, it is true, 

Two flaps there grew, 
That served for a pair of gold rings to go through ; 
But for any purpose of ears in a parley, 
They heard no more than ears of barley. 

No hint was needed from D. E. F. 

You saw in her face that the woman was deaf: 

From her twisted mouth to her eyes so peery, 

Each queer feature asked a query ; 

A look that said, in a silent way, 

" Who ? and What ? and How ? and Eh ? 

I 'd give my ears to know what you say ! " 

And well she might ! for each auricular 

Was deaf as a post — and that post in particular 

That stands at the corner of Dyott-street now, 

And never hears a word of a row ! 

Ears that might serve her now and then 
As extempore racks for an idle pen ; 
Or to hang with hoops from jewellers' shops 
With coral, ruby, or garnet drops ; 



308 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 

Or, providal the owner so inclined, 

Ears to stick a blister behind ; 

But as for hearing wisdom or wit, 

Falsehood, or folly, or tell-tale-tit, 

Or politics, whether of Fox or Pitt, 

Sermon, lecture, or musical bit, 

Harp, piano, fiddle, or kit. 

They might as well, for any such wish. 

Have been buttered, done brown, and laid in a dish ! 

She was deaf as a post, — as said before, — 

And as deaf as twenty similes more. 

Including the adder, that deafest of snakes, 

Which never hears the coil it makes. 

She was deaf as a house — which modern tricks 
Of lan2;uao-e would call as deaf as bricks — 
For her all human kind were dumb, 
Her drum, indeed, was so muffled a drum, 
That none could get a sound to come, 
Unless the Devil who had Two Sticks ! 
She was deaf as a stone — say one of the stones 
Demosthenes sucked to improve his tones ; 
And surely deafness no further could reach 
Than to be in his mouth without hearing his speech ! 
She was deaf as a nut — for nuts, no doubt. 
Are deaf to the grub that 's hollowing out — 
As deaf, alas ! as the dead and foro-otten — 
(Gray has noticed the waste of breath, 
In addressing the " dull, cold ear of death "), 
Or the Felon's ear that was stuffed with Cotton — 
Or Charles the First, iii statue quo : 
Or the still-born figures of Madame Tifssaud, 
With their eyes of glass, and their hair of flax, 
That only stare, whatever you "ax," 
For their ears, you know, are nothing but wax. 



A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 301) 

She was deaf as the ducks that swam in the pond, 

And would n't hsten to Mrs. Bond, — 

As deaf as any Frenchman appears, 

When he puts his shoulders into his ears : 

And — whatever the citizen tells his son — 

As deaf as Gooj and Mao-oo; at one ! 

Or, still to be a simile-seeker, 

As deaf as dog's-ears to Enfield's Speaker ! 

She was deaf as any tradesman's dummy, 
Or as Pharaoh's mother's mother's mummy ; 
Whose organs, for fear of our modern sceptics, 
Were plugged with gums and antiseptics. 

She was deaf-as a nail — that you cannot hammer 
A meaning into, for all your clamor — 
There never was such a deaf old Gammer ! 

So formed to worry 

Both Lindley and Murray, 
By having no ear for music or grammar ! 

Deaf to sounds, as a ship out of soundings, 
Deaf to verbs, and all their compoundings, 
Adjective, noun, and adverb, and particle, 
Deaf to even the definite article — 
No verbal message was worth a pin. 
Though you hired an earwig to carry it in ! 

In short, she was twice as deaf as Deaf Burke, 

Or all the deafness in Yearsley's Work, 

Who, in spite of his skill in hardness of hearing, 
Boring, blasting, and pioneering, 
To give the dunny organ a clearing. 

Could never have cured Dame Eleanor Spearing, 

Of course the loss was a great privation. 
For one of her sex — whatever her station — 
And none the less that the dame had a turn 



810 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 

For making all families one concern, 

And learning whatever there was to learn 

In the prattling, tattling village of Tringham — 

As who wore silk ? and who wore gingham 7 

And what the Atkins's shop might bring 'em? 

How the Smiths contrived to live ? and whether 

The fourteen Murph js all pigged together 7 

The wages per week of the Weavers and Skinners, 

And Avhat they boiled for their Sunday dinners 1 

What plates the Bugsbys had on the shelf, 

Crockery, china, wooden, or delf ] 

And if the parlor of Mrs. 0' Grady 

Had a wicked French print, or Death and the Lady ? 

Did Snip and his wife continue to jaTigle 7 

Had Mrs. Wilkinson sold her mangle 7 

What liquor was drunk by Jones and Brow^n 7 

And the weekly score they ran up at the Crown 7 

If the cobbler could read, and believed in the Pope 7 

And how the Grubbs were off for soap 7 

If the Snobbs had furnished their room up stairs. 

And how they managed for tables and chairs, 

Beds, and other household aiHiirs, 

Iron, wooden, and Staffordshire wares ; 

And if they could muster a whole pair of bellows 7 
In fact she had much of the spirit that lies 
Perdu in a notable set of Paul Prys, 

By courtesy called Statistical Fellows — 
A prying, spying, inquisitive clan, 
Who had gone upon much of the self-same plan, 

Jotting the laboring class's riches ; 
And after poking in pot and pan, 

And routing garments in want of stitches, 
Have ascertained that a workina: man 

Wears a pair and a quarter of average brooches ! 



A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 311 

But this, alas ! from her loss of hearing, 

Was all a sealed book to Dame Eleanor Spearing; 
And often her tears would rise to their founts — 

Supposing a little scandal at plaj 

'Twixt Mrs. O'Fie and Mrs. Au Fait — 

That she could n't audit the gossips' accounts. 

'T is true, to her cottage still they came, 

And ate her muffins just the same. 

And drank the tea of the widowed dame. 

And never swallowed a thimble the less 
Of something the reader is left to guess, 
For all the deafness of Mrs. S., 

Who saw them talk, and chuckle, and cough. 
But to see and not share in the social flow, 
She might as well have lived, you know. 
In one of the houses in Owen's Row, 

Near the New E-iver Head, with its water cut off! 

And jet the almond-oil she had tried, 

And fifty infallible things beside. 

Hot, and cold, and thick, and thin. 

Dabbed, and dribbled, and squirted in : 
But all remedies failed ; and though some it was clear 

(Like the brandy and salt 

We now exalt) 
Had made a noise in the public ear. 
She was just as deaf as ever, poor dear. 

At last — one very fine day in June — 

Suppose her sittmg, 

Busily knitting. 
And humming she did n't quite know what tune; 

For nothing she heard but a sort of a whizz, 
Which, unless the sound of a circulation. 
Or of thoughts in the process of fabrication, 



312 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 

Bj a spinning-jenny isli operation, 

It 's hard to say what buzzing it is. 
However, except that ghost of a sound. 
She, sat in a silence most profound — 
The cat was purring about the mat. 
But her mistress heard no more of that 
Than if it had been a boatswain's cat ; 
And as for tlie clock the moments nicking, 
The dame only gave it credit for ticking. 
The bark of her dog she did not catch ; 
Nor yet the click of the lifted latch ; 
Nor yet the creak of the opening door ; 
Nor yet the fall of the foot on the floor — 
But she saw the shadow that crept on her gowa^ 
And turned its skirt of a darker brown. 

And, lo ! a man ! a pedler ? ay, marry, 

With a little back-shop that such tradesmen carry^ 

Stocked with brooches, ribbons, and rings. 

Spectacles, razors, and other odd things, 

For lad and lass, as Autolycus sings ; 

A chapman for goodness and cheapness of ware 

Held a fair dealer enough at a fair. 

But deemed a piratical sort of invader 

By him we dub the " regular trader," 

Who, luring the passengers in as they pass 

By lamps, gay panels, and mouldings of brass, 

And windows with only one huge pane of glass, 

And his name in gilt characters, German or Roman 

If he is n't a pedler, at least is a showman ! 

However, in the stranger came, 

And, the moment he met the eyes of the dame. 

Threw her as knowing a nod as though 

He had known her fifty long years ago ; • 



A TALE OF A TRUMPET. SIS 

And, piesto i before she could utter ''Dtfeck" - 
Much less " Robinson" — opened his pack ->■ 

And then from amongst his portable gear, 
With even more than a pedler's tact, — 
(Slick himself might have envied the act)-— 
Before she had time to be deaf, in fact, 

Popped a trumpet into lier ear. 

'' There, ma'am ! try it ! 

You need n't buj it — 
The last new patent — and nothing comes ni^^h it 
For affording the deaf, at little expense. 
The sense of hearing, and hearing of sense ! 
A real blessing — and no mistake. 
Invented for poor humanity's sake; 
For what can be a greater privation 
Than playing dummy to all creation, 
And only looking at conversation — 
Great philosophers talking like Platos, 
And members of Parliament moral as Catos, 
And your ears as dull as waxy potatoes ! 
Not to name the mischievous quizzers, 
Sharp as knives, but double as scissors, 
Who get you to answer quite by guess 
Yes for no, and no for yes." 
("That 's very true," says Dame Eleanor S.) 

" Try it again ! No harm in trying — 

I 'm sure you '11 find it worth your buying. 

A little practice — that is all — 

And you '11 hear a whisper, however 'small, 

Through an Act of Parliament party wall, — 

Every syllable clear as day, 

And even what people are going to say — 



314 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 

I would n't tell a lie, I would n't, 

But mj trumpets have heard what Solomon's couldn't; 
And as for Scott, he promises fine, 
But can he warrant his horns, like mine, 

Never to hear what a lady shouldn't? — 
Only a guinea — and can't take less." 
(■• That 's very dear," says Dame Eleanor S.) 

'' Dear ! — dear, to call it dear! 
Why it is n't a horn you buy, but an ear ; 
Only think, and you '11 find on reflection 
You 're bargaining, ma'am, for the Voice of Affection 
For the language of Wisdom, and Virtue, and Truth, 
And the sweet little innocent prattle of youth : 
Not to mention the striking of clocks — 
Cackle of hens — crowing of cocks — 
Lowing of cow, and bull, and ox — 
Bleating of pretty pastoral flocks — 
Murmur of waterfall over the rocks — 
Every sound that Echo mocks — 
Vocals, fiddles, and musical-box — 
And, zounds ! to call such a concert dear ! 
But I must n't swear with my horn in your ear. 
Why, in buying that trumpet you buy all those 
That Harper, or any trumpeter, blows 
At the Queen's levees, or the Lord Mayor's shows, 
At least as far as the music goes. 
Including the wonderful lively sound 
Of the Guards' key-bugles all the year round 
Come — suppose we call it a pound ! 
Come," said the talkative man of the pack, 
' Before I put my box on my back. 
For this elegant, useful conductor of sound, 
Come — suppose we call it a pound ! 



A TALE OF A TRUMPET. ol5 

" Only a pound ! it 's only the price 
Of hearing a concert once or twice. 

It 's only the fee 

You might give Mr. C, 
And after all not hear his advice, 
But common prudence would bid you stump it j 

For, not to enlarge. 

It 's the regular charge 
At a fancy fair for a penny trumpet. 
Lord ! what 's a pound to the blessing of hearing ! " 
("A pound 's a pound," said Dame Eleanor Spearing.) 

'' Try it again ! no harm in trying ! 

A pound 's a pound, there 's no denying ; 

But think what thousands and thousands of pounds 

We pay hr nothing but hearing sounds ; 

Sounds of equity, justice, and law. 

Parliamentary jabber and jaw, 

Pious cant and moral saw. 

Hocus-pocus, and Nong-tong-paw, 

And empty sounds not worth a straw ; 

Why, it costs a guinea, as I 'm a sinner, 

To hear the sounds at a public dinner ! 

One-pound-one thrown into the puddle, 

To listen to fiddle, faddle and fuddle ! 

Not to forget the sounds we buy 

From those who sell their sounds so high, 

That, unless the managers pitch it strong, 

To get a signora to warble a song 

You must fork out the blunt with a haymaker's prong, 

" It 's not the thing for me — I know it — 
To crack my own trumpet up and blow it; 
But it is the best, and time will show it. 



316 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 

There was Mrs. F. 

So very deaf, 
That she might have worn a percussion-cap, 
And been knocked on the head without hearing it snap, 
Well, I sold her a horn, and the very next day 
She heard from her husband at Botany Bay ! 
Come — eighteen shillings — that 's very low. 
You *11 save the money as shillings go, — 
And I never knew so bad a lot, — 
By hearing whether they ring or not ! 
Eighteen shillings ! it 's worth the price, 
Supposing you 're delicate-minded and nice, 
To have the medical man of your choice. 
Instead of the one with the strongest voice — 
Who comes and asks you how 's your liver, 
And where you ache, and whether you shiver 
And as to yoar nerves so apt to quiver, 
As if he was hailing a boat on the river ! 
And then, with a shout, like Pat in a riot. 
Tells you to keep yourself perfectly quiet ! 

" Or a tradesman comes — as tradesmen will — 
Short and crusty about his bill, 

Of patience, indeed, a perfect scorner. 
And because you 're deaf and unable to pay, 
Shouts whatever he has to say, 
In a vulgar voice that goes over the way, 

Down the street and round the corner ! 
Come — speak your mind — it 's ' No or Yes.' " 
(" I 've half a mind," said Dame Eleanor S.) 

' ' Try it again — no harm iA trying ; 

Of course you hear me. as easy as lying ; 

No pain at all, like a surgical trick. 

To make you squall, and struggle, and kick, 



A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 317 

Like Juno, or Rose, 

Whose ear undergoes 
Such horrid tugs at membrane and gristle. 
For being as deaf as yourself to a whistle ! 

''You may go to surgical chaps, if you choose, 

Who will blow up your tubes like copper flues, 

Or cut your tonsils right away, 

As you 'd shell out ^^our almonds for Christmas-day ; 

And after all a matter of doubt, 

Whether you ever would hear the shout 

Of the little blackguards that bawl about, 

' There you go with your tonsils out ! '. 

Why, I knew a deaf Welshman who came from Glamorgan 

On purpose to try a surgical spell. 

And paid a guinea, and might as well 
Have called a monkey into his organ ! 
For the Aurist only took a mug, 
And poured in his ear some acoustical drug, 
That, instead of curing, deafened him rather, 
As Hamlet's uncle served Hamlet's father I 
That 's the way with your surgical gentry ! 
And happy your luck 
If you don't get stuck 
Through your liver and lights at a royal entry, 
Because you never answered the sentry ! 

" Try it again, dear madam, try it ! 
Many would sell their beds to buy it. 
I warrant you often wake up in the night. 
Ready to shake to a jelly with fright. 
And up you must get to strike a light, 
And down you go in you know not what, 
Whether the weather is chilly or not, — 



318 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 

That 's the way a cold is got, — 
To see if you heard a noise or not ! 

" Why, bless you, a woman with organs like your 
Is hardly safe to step out of doors ! 
Just fancy a horse that comes full pelt, 
But as quiet as if he was ' shod with felt,' 
Till he rushes against you with all his force, 
And then I need n't describe, of course. 
While he kicks you about without remorse, 
How awkward it is to be groomed by a horse ! 
Or a bullock comes, as mad as King Lear, 
And you never dream that the brute is near, 
Till he pokes his horn right into your ear, 
Whether you like the thing or lump it, — 
And all for want of buying a trumpet ! 

'^ I 'm not a female to fret and vex, 
But if I belonged to the sensitive sex. 
Exposed to all sorts of indelicate sounds, 
I wouldn't be deaf for a thousand pounds. 

Lord ! only think of chucking a copper 
To Jack or Bob with a timber limb, 
Who looks as if he was singing a hymn, 

Instead of a song that 's very improper ! 
Or just suppose in a public place 
You see a great fellow a-pulling a face. 
With his staring eyes and his mouth like an 0,— 
And how is a poor deaf lady to know — 
The lower orders are up to such games — 
If he 's calling ' Green Peas,' or calling her names'?" 
//' They 're tenpence a peck ! " said the deafest of dames.) 

'' 'Tis strange what very strong advising, 
By word of mouth or advertising, 



A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 319 

By chalking on walls, or placarding on vans, 

With fifty other different plans, 

The very high pressure, in fact, of pressing, 

It needs to persuade one to purchase a blessing ! 

Whether the Soothing American Syrup, 

A Safety Hat or a Safety Stirrup, — 

Infallible Pills for the human frame. 

Or Rowland's 0-don't-o (an ominous name !) 

A Doudney's suit which the shape so hits 

That it beats all others into Jits ; 

A Mechi's razor for beards unshorn, 

Or a Ghost-of-a- Whisper-Catching Horn ! 

" Try it again, ma'am, only try ! " 

Was still the voluble pedler's cry ; 

" It 's a great privation, there 's no dispute, 

To live like the dumb unsociable brute, 

And to hear no more of the pro and con^ 

And how society's going on. 

Than Mumbo Jumbo or Prester John, 

And all for want of this sine qua non ; 

Whereas, with a horn that never offends. 
You may join the genteelest party that is, 
And enjoy all the scandal, and gossip, and quiz, 

And be certain to hear of your absent friends ; — 
Not that elegant ladies, in fact. 
In genteel society ever detract. 
Or lend a brush when a friend is blacked, 
At least as a mere malicious act, — 
But only talk scandal for fear some fool 
Should think they were bred at charity school. 

Or, maybe, you like a little flirtation. 
Which even the most Don Juanish rake 
Would surely object to undertake 

At the same high pitch as an altercation. 



820 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 

It 's not for me, of course, to judge 

How much a deaf lady ought to begrudge ; 

But half-a-guinea seems no great matter — 

Letting alone more rational patter — 

Only to hear a parrot chatter ; 

Not to mention tliat feathered wit. 

The starling, who speaks when his tongue is slit; 

The pies and jays that utter words, 

And other Dicky Gossips of birds. 

That talk with as much good sense and decorum 

As many Beaks who belong to the quorum. 

*' Try it — buy it — say ten-and-six, 

The lowest price a miser could fix : 

I don't pretend with horns of mine. 

Like some in the advertising line, 

To ' magnify sounds ' on such marvellous scales 

That the sounds of a cod seem as big as a whale's; 

But popular rumors, right or wrong, — 

Charity sermons, short or long,- — 

Lecture, speech, concerto, or song, 

All noises and voices, feeble or strono-, 

7 07 

From the hum of a gnat to the clash of a gong, 
This tube will deliver, distinct and clear ; 
Or supposing by chance 
You wish to dance, 
Why, it 's putting a Horn-pipe into your ea.r 1 
Try it — buy it ! 
Buy it — try it ! 
The last new patent, and nothing comes nigh it, 
For guiding sounds to proper tunnel : 
^ Only try till the end of June, 

And if you and the trumpet are out of tune, 
I '11 turn it gratis into a funnel ! " 



A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 32.1 

In short, the pedler so beset her, 

Lord Bacon could n't have gammoned her better, — • 

With flatteries plump and indirect, 

And plied his tongue with such eflect, — 

A tongue that could almost have buttered a crumpet, — 

The deaf old AYoman bought the trumpet. 

^ * :^ * ^ * 

The pedler was gone. With the horn's assistance, 
She heard his steps die away in the distance ; 
And then she heard the tick of the clock, 
The purring of puss, and the snoring of Shock ! 
And she purposely dropt a pin that was little, 
And heard it fall as plain as a skittle ! 

'T was a wonderful horn, to be but just ! 
Nor meant to gather dust, must, and rust : 
So in half a jiffy, or less than that, 
In her scarlet cloak and her steeple hat, 
Like old Dame Trot, but without her Cat, 
The gossip was hunting all Tringham thorough} 
As if she meant to canvass the borough, 

Trumpet in hand, or up to the cavity : — 
And, sure, had the horn been one of those 
The wild rhinoceros wears on his nose 

1^1 couldn't have ripped up more depravity ! 

Depravity ! mercy shield her ears ! 

'T was plain enough that her village peers 

Li the ways of vice were no raw beginners ; 
For whenever she raised the tube to her drum, 
Such sounds were transmitted as only come 

From the very brass band of human sinners ! 

Ribald jest and blasphemous curse, 
(Bunyan never vented worse,) 

21 



322 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 

With all those weeds, not flowers, of speech 

Which the seven Dialecticians teach ; 

Filthy conjunctions, and dissolute nouns, 

And particles picked from the kennels of towns. 

With irregular verbs for irregular jobs, 

Chiefly active in rows and mobs, 

Picking possessive pronouns' fobs, 

And interjections as bad as a blight, 

Or an Eastern i)last, to the blood and the sight ; 

Fanciful phrases for crime and sin, 

And smacking of vulgar lips where gin, 

Garlic, tobacco, and offals go in — 

A jargon so truly adapted, in fact, 

To each thievish, obscene, and ferocious act, 

So fit for the brute with the human shape, 

Savage baboon, or libidinous ape. 

From their ugly mouths it will certainly come 

Should they ever get weary of shamming dumb ! 

Alas ! for the voice of Virtue and Truth, 
And the sweet little innocent prattle of youth ! 
The smallest urchin whose tongue could tang 
Shocked the dame with a volley of slang. 
Fit for Fagin's juvenile gang ; 
While the charity chap. 
With his mufiin cap, 

His crimson coat and his badge so garish, 
Playing at dumps, or pitch in tJie hole. 
Cursed his eyes, limbs, body, and soul, 

As if they did n't belong to the parish ! 
'T was awful to hear, as she went along, 
The wicked words of the popular song : 

Or supposing she listened — as gossips will — 
At a door ajar, or a window agape. 
To catch the sounds they allowed to escape, 



A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 323 

Those sounds belonged to Depravity still ! 
The dark allusion, or bolder brag 
Of the dexterous " dodge," and the lots of '' swag," 
The plundered house — or the stolen nag — 
The blazing rick, or the darker crime 
That quenched the spark before its time — 
The wanton speech of the wife immoral — ■ 
The noise of drunken or deadly quarrel, — • 
With savage menaces, which threatened the life, 
Till the heart seemed merely a strop • for the knife ; ' 
The human liver, no better than that 
Which is sliced and thrown to an old woman's cat ; 

And the head, so useful for shaking and nodding, 
To be punched into holes, like a ' shocking bad hat ' 

That is only fit to be punched into wadding ! 

In short, wherever she turned the horn, 
To the highly bred or the lowly born, 
The working man who looked over the hedge, 
Or the mother nursing her infant pledge, 

The sober Quaker, averse to quarrels, 
Or the governess pacing the village through, 
With her twelve young ladies, two and two, 
Looking, as such young ladies do. 

Trussed by Decorum and stuffed with morals — • 
Whether she listened to Hob or Bob, 
Nob or Snob, 
The Squire on his cob. 
Or Trudge and his ass at a tinkering job, 
To the saint who expounded at " Little Zion ''— ~ 
Or the " sinner who kept the Golden Lion " — 
The man teetotally weaned from liquor — 
The beadle, the clerk, or the reverend vicar — 
Nay, the very pie in its cage of wicker — 
She gathered such meanings, double or single, 



824 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 

Tliat, like the bell 
With muffins to sell, 
Her ear was kept in a constant tingle ! 

But this was naught to the tales of shame. 
The constant runnings of evil fame, 
Foul, and dirty, and black as ink, 
That her ancient cronies, with nod and wink. 
Poured in her horn like slops in a sink : 

While sitting in conclave, as gossips do, 
With their Hyson or Howqua, black or green, 
And not a little of feline spleen 

Lapped up in " Catty packages." too, 

To give a zest to the sipping and supping ; 
For still, by some invisible tether. 
Scandal and tea are linked together, 

As surely as scarification and cupping ; 
Yet never since Scandal drank Bohea — 
Or sloe, or whatever it happened to be, 
For some grocerly thieves 
Turn over new leaves 
Without much amending their lives or their tea — 
No, never since cup was filled or stirred. 
Were such vile and horrible anecdotes heard. 
As blackened their neighbors of either gender, 
Especially that which is called the Tender, 
But instead of the softness we fancy therewith, 
_ As hardened in vice as the vice of a smith. 

Women ! the wretches ! had soiled and marred 
Whatever to womanly nature belongs ; 

For tlie marriage tie they had no regard. 

Nay, sped their mates to the sexton's yard, 

(Tiike Madame Laffarge, who with poisonous pinches 
Kept cutting ofi" her L by inches) 

And as for drinking, they drank so hard 



A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 325 

That thej drank their flat-irons, pokers, and tongs ! 
The men — they fought and gambled at fairs ; 
And poached — and didn't respect gray hairs — 
Stole linen, money, plate, poultry, and corses ; 
And broke in houses as well as horses ; 
Unfolded folds to kill their own mutton, 
And would their own mothers and wives for a button — 
But not to repeat the deeds they did, 
Backsliding in spite of all moral skid. 
If all were true that fell from the tongue. 
There was not a villager, old or young, 
But deserved to be whipped, imprisoned, or hung, 
Or sent on those travels which nobody hurries 
To publish at Colburn's, or Longmans', or Murray's. 

Meanwhile the trumpet, con amore, 
Transmitted each vile diabolical story ; 
And gave the least whisper of slips and falls, 
As that gallery does in the dome of St. Paul's, 
Which, as all the world knows, by practice or print. 
Is famous for making the most of a hint. 
Not a murmur of shame, 
Or buzz of blame, 
Not a flying report that flew at a name, 
Not a plausible gloss, or significant note. 
Not a word in the scandalous circles afloat ' 
Of a beam in the eye or diminutive mote, 
But vortex-like that tube of tin 
Sucked the censorious particle in ; 

And, truth to tell, for as willing an organ 
As ever listened to serpent's hiss. 
Nor took the viperous sound amiss. 

On the snaky head of an ancient Gorgon ! 



326 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 

The dame, it is true, would mutter •' Shocking I" 
And give her head a sorrowful rocking, 
And make a clucking with palate and tongue, 
Like the call of Partlett to gather her young, — 
A sound, when human, that always proclaims 
At least a thousand pities and shames. 

But still the darker the tale of sin. 
Like certain folks when calamities burst, 
Who find a comfort in " hearing the worst," 

The further she poked the trumpet in. 
Nay, worse, whatever she heard, she spread 

East, and West, and North, and South, 
Like the ball which, according to Captain Z., 

Went in at his ear, and came out at his mouth« 

What wonder, between the horn and the dame, 
Such mischief was made wherever they came, 
That the parish of Tringham was all in a flame ! 

For although it requires such loud discharges, 
Such peals of thunder as rumbled at Lear, 
To turn the smallest of table-beer, 
A little whisper breathed into the ear 

Will sour a temper " as sour as varges.'^ 
Li fact, such very ill blood there grew, 

From this private circulation of st(5ries, 
That the nearest neighbors, the village through, 
Looked at each other as yellow and blue 
As any electioneering crew 

Wearing the colors of Whigs and Tories. 

Ah ! well the poet said^ in sooth. 

That "whispering tongues can poison Truth," 

Yea, like a dose of oxalic acid, 

Wrench and convulse poor Peace, the placid, 



A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 327 

And rack dear Love with internal fuel. 



'■1 



Like arsenic pastry, or, what is as cruel, 

Sugar of lead, that sweetens gruel ; 

At least such torments beo;an to wring; 'em 

From the very morn 

When that mischievous horn 
Caught the whisper of tongues in Tringham. 

The Social Clubs dissolved in huffs. 

And the Sons of Harmony came to cuffs, 

While feuds arose, and family quarrels, 

That discomposed the mechanics of morals. 

For screws were loose between brother and brother, 

While sisters fastened their nails on each other : 

Such wrangles, and jangles, and miff, and tiff, 

And spar, and jar — and breezes as stiff 

As ever upset a friendship or skiff ! 

The plighted lovers, who used to walk. 

Refused to meet, and declined to talk ; 

And wished for Hdo moons to reflect the sun, 

That they mightn't look together on one ; 

While Avedded affection ran so low, 

That the oldest John Anderson snubbed his Jo — 

And instead of the toddle adown the hill, 

Hand in hand. 

As the song has planned, 
Scratched her, penniless, out of his will ! 

In short, to describe what came to pass 

In a true, though somewhat theatrical way. 
Instead of " Love in a Village " — alas ! 
The piece they performed was '' The Devil to Pay ! 

However, as secrets are brought to light, 

And mischief comes home like chickens at night : 



S28 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 

And rivers are tracked throughout their course, 
And forgeries traced to their proper source ; — 

And the sow that ought 

By the ear is caught, — 
And the sin to the sinful door is brought ; 
And the cat at last escapes from the bag — 
And the saddle is placed on the proper nag ; 
And the fog blows off, and the key is found — 
And the faulty scent is picked out by the hound — 
And the fact turns up like a worm from the ground — 
And the matter gets wind to waft it about ; 
And a hint goes abroad, and the murder is out — 
And the riddle is guessed — and the puzzle is known— 
So the truth was sniffed, and the trumpet was blown ! 

^ a/^ ^it 4tf -^ 

-TV- -TV ■rf' TV* -Tv* 

'T is a day m November — a day of fog — 
But the Tringham people are all agog ; 
Fathers, mothers, and mothers' sons, — 
With sticks, and staves, and swords, and guns, — 
As if in pursuit of a rabid dog ; 
But their voices — raised to the highest pitch — 
Declare that the game is " a Witch ! — a Witch ! " 
Over the green and along by the George — 
Past the stocks, and the church, and the forge, 
And round the pound, and skirting the pond. 
Till they come to the whitewashed cottage beyond, 
And there at the door they muster and cluster, 
And thump, and kick, and bellow, and bluster — 
Enough to put old Nick in a fluster ! 
A noise, indeed, so loud and long. 
And mixed with expressions so very strong, 
That supposing, according to popular fame, 
"• Wise Woman " and Witch to be the same, 



A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 82y 

No hag with a broom would unwisely stop, 
But up and away through the chimney-top ; 
Whereas, the moment they burst the door, 
Planted fast on her sanded floor, 
With her trumpet up to her organ of hearing, 
Lo and behold ! — Dame Eleanor Spearing ! 

1 then arises the fearful shout — 
Bawled and screamed, and bandied about — 
'^ Seize her ! — drag the old Jezebel out ! '' 
While the beadle — - the foremost of all the band ■— 
Snatches the horn from her trembling hand, 
And after a pause of doubt and fear. 
Puts it up to his sharpest ear. 

" Now silence — silence — one and all ! " 
For the clerk is quoting from Holy Paul 1 

But before he rehearses 

A couple of verses. 
The beadle lets the trumpet fall ; 
For instead of tlie words so pious and humble, 
He hears a supernatural grumble. 

Enouo-h, enough ! and more than enouo;h : — 
Twenty impatient hands and rough, 
By arm, and leg, and neck, and scruff, 
Apron, 'kerchief, gown of stuff — 
Cap, and pinner, sleeve, and cuff — 
Are clutching the Witch wherever they can^ 
With the spite of woman and fury of man ; 
And then — but first they kill her cat, 
And murder her dog on the very mat — 
And crush the infernal trumpet flat ; — 
And then they hurry her through the door 
She never, never, will enter more ! 



330 A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 

Away ! away ! down the dusty lane 

They pull her, and haul her, with might and main 

And happy the hawbuck, Tom or Harry, 

Dandy, or Sandy, Jerry, or Larry, 

Who happens to get "a leg to carry ! " 

And happy the foot that can give her a kick, 

And happy the hand that can find a brick — 

And happy the fingers that hold a stick — 

Knife to cut, or pin to prick — 

And happy the boy who can lend her a lick ; — 

Nay, happy the urchin — charity-bred — 

Who can shy very nigh to her wicked old head ! 

Alas ! to think how people's creeds 
Are contradicted by people's deeds ! 

But though the wishes that Witches utter 
Can play the most diabolical rigs — 
Send styes in the eye — and measle the pigs — 

Grease horses' heels — and spoil the butter ; 
Smut and mildew the corn on the stalk — 
And turn new milk to water and chalk, — 
Blight apples — and give the chickens the pip — 
And cramp the stomach — and cripple the hip — • 
And waste the body — and addle the eggs — 
And give a baby bandy legs ; 
Though in common belief a Witch's curse 
Involves all these horrible things and worse — 
As ignorant bumpkins all profess — 
No bumpkin makes a poke the less 
At the back or ribs of old Eleanor S. ! 

As if she were only a sack of barley ; 
Or gives her credit for greater might 
Than the powers of darkness confer at night 

On that otht^r old woman, the parish Charley ; 



A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 331 

Aj, now 's the time for a Witch to call 

On her imps and sucklings one and all — 

Newes, Pjewacket, or Peck in the Crown, 

(As Matthew Hopkins has handed them dovm^i 

Dick, and Willet, and Sugar-and-Sack, 

Greedy Grizel, Jarmara the Black, 

Vinegar Tom and the rest of the pack — 

A J, now 's the nick for her friend Old Harrj 

To come " with his tail " like the bold Glengarry, 

And drive her foes from their savage job 

As a mad Black Bullock would scatter a mob : — 

But no such matter is down in the bond ; 
And spite of her cries that never cease, 
But scare the ducks and astonish the geese, 

The dame is dragged to the fatal pond ! 

And now they come to the water's brim — 

And in they bundle her — sink or swim : 

Though it's twenty to one that the wretch must drown 

With twenty sticks to hold her down ; 

Including the help to the self-same end, 

Which a travelling pedler stops to lend. 

A pedler ! — Yes ! — The same ! — the same ! 

Who sold the horn to the drowning dame ! 

And now is foremost amid the stir, 

With a token only revealed to her ; 

A token that makes her shudder and shriek, 

And point with her finger, and strive to speak — 

But before she can utter the name of the Devil, 

Her head is under the water level ! 

There are folks about town — to name no names — 
Who much resemble that deafest of dames ; 



332 NO. 

And over their tea, and muffins, and crumpets, 
Circulate manj a scandalous word, 
And whisper tales they could only have heard 

Through some such Diabolical Trumpets ! 



NO! 

No sun — no moon ! 

No morn — no noon — 
No dawn — no dusk — no proper time of day — 

No sky — no earthly view — 

No distance looking blue — 
No road — no street — no '• t'other side the way "- 

No end to any Row — 

No indications where the Crescents go — 

No top to any steeple — 
No recognitions of familiar people — 

No courtesies for showing 'em — 

No knowing 'em ! 
No travelling at all — no locomotion. 
No inkling of the way — no notion — 

'^ No go " — by land or ocean — 

No mail — no post — 

No news from any foreign coast — 
No park — no ring — no afternoon gentility — 

No company — no nobility — 
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease, 

No comfortable feel in any member — 
No shade, no shine, no butterflies^ no bees, 
No fruits, no flow^ers, no leaves, no bii'ds, 

November ! 



THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 



Alack ! 't is melancholy theme to think 
How Learning doth in rugged states abide, 
And, like her bashful owl, obscurely blink. 
In pensive glooms and corners, scarcely spied ; 
Not, as in Founders' Halls and domes of pride. 
Served with grave homage, like a tragic queen, 
But with one lonely priest compelled to hide, 
In midst of fo2;o;y moors and mosses sreen, 
In that clay cabin hight the College of Kilreen ! 

This college looketh South and West alsoe, 
Because it hath a cast in Avindows twain ; 
Crazy and cracked they be, and wind doth blow 
Thorough transparent holes in every pane. 
Which Dan, with many paines, makes whole again 
With nether garments, which his thrift doth teach 
To stand for glass, like pronouns, and when rain 
Stormeth, he puts, '' once more unto the breach," 
Outside and in, though broke, yet so he mendeth each. 

And in the midst a little door there is, 
Whereon a board that doth congratulate 
With painted letters, red as blood I wis. 
Thus written, *< (TiiilDcett fatten in to 23atc;*' 
And oft, indeed, the inward of that gate, 
Most ventriloque, doth utter tender squeak. 
And moans of infants that bemoan their fate- 
In midst of sounds of Latin, French, and Greek, 
Which, all i' the Irish tongue, he teacheth them to speak. 



Mi THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 

For some are meant to right illegal wrongs, 
And some for Doctors of Diviuitie, 
Whom he doth teach to murder the dead tongues 
And soe win academical degree : 
But some are bred for service of the sea, 
Howbeit, their store of learning is but small, 
For mickle waste he counteth it would be 
To stock a head with bookish wares at all, 
Onlj to be knocked off by ruthless cannon-ball. 

Six babes he sways, — some little and some big, 
Divided into classes six ; — alsoe, 
He keeps a parlor boarder of a pig, 
That in the college fareth to and fro, 
And picketh up the urchins' crumbs below, — 
And eke the learned rudiments they scan, 
And thus his A, B, C, doth wisely know, — 
Hereafter to be shown in caravan, 
And raise the wonderment of many a learned man. 

Alsoe, he schools some tame familiar fowls, 
Whereof, above his head, some two or three 
Sit darkly squatting, like Minerva's owls, 
But on the branches of no living tree. 
And overlook the learned family ; 
While, sometimes, Partlet, from her gloomy perch, 
Drops feather on the nose of Dominie, 
Meanwhile, with serious eye, he makes research 
In leaves of that sour tree of knowleda:e — now a birch 

No chair he hath, the awful pedagogue. 
Such as would magisterial hams imbed, 
But sitteth lowly on a beechen log, 
Secure in high authority and dread : 
Large, as a dome for learning, seems his head 
And like Apollo's, all beset with rays, 



THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 336 

Because his locks are so unkempt and red, 
And stand abroad in many several ways : — 
No laurel crown he wears, howbeit his cap is baize, 

And, underneath, a pair of shaggy brows 
O'erhang as many eyes of gizzard hue. 
That inward giblet of a fowl, which shows 
A moncrrel tint, that is ne brow ne blue ; 
His nose. — it is a coral to the view ; 
Well nourished with Pierian potheen, — 
For much he loves his native mountain dew ; — 
But to depict the dye would lack, I ween, 
A bottle-red, in terms, as well as bottle-green. 

As for his coat, 't is such a jerkin short 
As Spenser had, ere he composed his Tales ; 
But underneath he hath no vest, nor aught, 
So that the wind his airy breast assails ; 
Below, he wears the nether garb of males, 
Of crimson plush, but non-plushed at the knee : — 
Thence further down the native red prevails, 
Of his own naked fleecy hosierie : — 
Two sandals, without soles, complete his cap-a-pie. 

Nathless, for dignity, he now doth lap 
His function in a magisterial gown. 
That shows more countries in it than a map, — 
Blue tinct, and red, and green, and russet brown, 
Besides some blots, standing for country-town ; 
And eke some rents, for streams and rivers wide j 
But, sometimes, bashful when he looks adown, 
He turns the garment of the other side, 
Hopeful that so the holes may never be espied ! 

And soe he sits, amidst the little pack. 
That look for shady or for sunny noon. 



336 THE lEISH SCHOOLMASTER. 

Witliin his visage, like an almanack, — 
His quiet smile foretelling gracious boon : 
But when his mouth droops down, like rainy moon, 
With horrid chill each little heart unwarms, 
Knowing that infant showers will follow soon, 
And with forebodings of near wrath and storms 
Tliej sit, like timid hares, all trembling on their forms. 

Ah ! luckless wight, who cannot then repeat 
"Corduroy Colloquy," — or ''Ki, Kae, Kod," — 
Full soon his tears shall make his turfy seat 
More sodden, though already made of sod. 
For Dan shall whip him with the word of God, — 
Severe by rule, and not by nature mild. 
He never spoils the child and spares the rod, 
But spoils the rod and never spares the child, 
And soe with holy rule deems he is reconciled. 

But surely the just sky will never wink 
At men who take delight in childish throe, 
And stripe the nether-urchin like a pink 
Or tender hyacinth, inscribed with woe ; 
Such bloody pedagogues, when they shall know, 
By useless birches, that forlorn recess, 
Which is no holiday, in Pit below, 
Will hell not seem designed for their distress, — 
A melancholy place, that is all bottomlesse ? 

Yet would the Muse not chide the wholesome use 

Of needful discipline, in due degree. 

Devoid of sway, what wrongs will time produce ! 

AVhene'er the twig untrained grows up a tree, 

This shall a Carder, that a AVhiteboy be, 

Ferocious leaders of atrocious bands. 

And Learning's help be used for infamie, 



THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 337 

By lawless clerks, that, with their bloody hands, 
In murdered English write Rock's murderous commands, 

But, ah ! what shrilly cry doth now alarm 
The sooty fowls that dozed upon the beam, 
All sudden fluttering from the brandished arm 
And cackling chorus with the human scream ; 
Meanwhile the scourge plies that unkindly seam 
In Phelim's brogues, which bares his naked skin, 
Like traitor gap in warlike fort, I deem, 
That falsely lets the fierce besieger in, 
Nor seeks the pedagogue by other course to win. 

No parent dear he hath to heed his cries ; — 
Alas ! his parent dear is far aloof, 
And deep in Seven-Dial cellar lies, 
Killed by kind cudgel-play, or gin of proof, 
Or climbeth, catwise, on some London roof. 
Singing, perchance, a lay of Erin's Isle, 
Or, whilst he labors, weaves a fancy-woof, 
Dreaming he sees his home, — his Phelim smile ; 
Ah, me ! that luckless imp, who weepeth all the while ! 

Ah ! who can paint that hard and heavy time, 
When first the scholar lists in Learning's train, 
And mounts her rugged steep enforced to climb, 
Like sooty imp, by sliarp posterior pain, 
From bloody twig, and eke that Indian cane, 
Wherein, alas ! no sugared juices dwell ? 
For this, the while one stripling's sluices drain, 
Another weepeth over chillblains fell, 
Always upon the heel, yet never to be well ! 

Anon a third, for his delicious root, 

Late ravished from his tooth by elder chit. 

22 



338 THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTEK. 

So soon is human violence afoot, 
So hardly is the harmless biter bit ! 
Meanwhile, the tyrant, with untimely wit 
And mouthing face, derides the small one's moan, 
Who, all lamenting for his loss, doth sit, 
Alack, — mischance comes seldomtimes alone, 
But aye the worried dog must rue more curs than one. 

For, lo ! the pedagogue, with sudden drub, 
Smites his scald head, that is already sore, — • 
Superfluous wound, — such is Misfortune's rub ! 
Who straight makes answer with redoubled roar, 
And sheds salt tears twice faster than before. 
That still with backward fist he strives to dry ; 
Washing w4th brackish moisture, o'er and o'er, 
His muddy cheek, that grows more foul thereby, 
Till all his rainy face looks grim as rainy sky. 

So Dan, by dint of noise, obtains a peace, 
And with his natural untender knack, 
By new distress, bids former grievance cease. 
Like tears dried up with rugged huckaback, 
That sets the mournful visage all awrack ; 
Yet soon the childish countenance will shine 
Even as thorough storms the soonest slack. 
For grief and beef in adverse ways incline, 
This keeps, and that decays, when duly soaked in brine. 

Now, all is hushed, and, with a look profound, 
The Dominie lays ope the learned page ; 
(So be it called) although he doth expound 
Without a book, both Greek and Latin sage ; 
Now telleth he of Rome's rude infant age, 
How Romulus was bred in savas-e wood, 
By wet-nurse wolf, devoid of wolfish rage, 



THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 389 

And laid foundation-stone of walls of mud, 
But watered it, alas ! with warm fraternal blood. 

Anon, he turns to that Homeric war. 
How Tioy was sieged like Londonderry town; 
And stout Achilles, at his jaunting-car, 
Dragged miglity Hector with a bloody crown : 
And eke the bard, that sung of their renown, 
In garb of Greece most beggar-like and torn, 
He paints, with colly, wandering up and down : 
Because, at once, in seven cities born ; 
And so, of parish rights, was, all his days, forlorn. 

Anon, through old Mythology he goes, 
Of gods defunct, and all their pedigrees. 
But shuns their scandalous amours, and shows 
How Plato wise, and clear-eyed Socrates. 
Confessed not to those heathen he's and she's; 
But through the clouds of the Olympic cope 
Beheld St. Peter with his holy keys, 
And owned their love was naught, and bowed to Pope, 
Whilst all their purblind race in Pagan mist did grope. 

From such quaint themes he turns, at last, aside, 
To new philosophies, that still are green. 
And shows what railroads have been tracked to guide 
The wheels of great political machine ; 
If English corn should grow abroad, I ween, 
And gold be made of gold, or paper sheet ; 
How many pigs ba born to each spalpeen ; 
And, ah ! how maa shall thrive beyond his meat, — 
With twenty souls alive to one square sod of peat ! 

Here he makes end : and all the fry of youth, 
That stood around with serious look intense, 



340 THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. 

Close up again their gaping eyes and mouth. 
Which they had opened to his eloquence, 
As if their hearing were a three-fold sense. 
But now the current of his words is done, 
And whether any fruits shall spring from thence, 
In future time, with any mother's son ! 
It is a thing, God wot ! that can be told by none. 

Now by the creeping shadows of the noon, 
The hour is come to lay aside their lore ; 
The cheerful pedagogue perceives it soon, 
And cries '' Begone ! " unto the imps, — and four 
Snatch their two hats and struggle for the door, 
Like ardent spirits vented from a cask, 
All blithe and boisterous, — but leave two more, 
With Reading made Uneasy for a task, 
To weep, whilst all their mat^s in merry sunshine bask. 

Like sportive Elfins, on the verdant sod, 
. With tender moss so sleekly overgrown, 

That doth not hurt, but kiss, the sole unshod, 

So soothly kind is Erin to her own ! 

And one, at Hare and Hound, plays all alone, — 

For Phelim's gone to tend his step-dame" s cow; 

Ah ! Phelim's step-dame is a cankered crone ! 

Whilst other twain play at an Irish row, 
And, with shillelah small, break one another's brow; 

But careful Dominie, with ceaseless thrift, 
Now changeth ferula for rural hoe ; 
But, first of all, with tender hand doth shift 
His college gown, because of solar glow, 
And hangs it on a bush, to scare the crow : 
Meanwhile, he plants in earth the dappled bean, 
Or trains the young potatoes all a-row, 



EPIGRAMS. 

Or plucks the fragrant leek for pottage green. 
With that crisp curlj herb, called Kale in Aberde< 

And so he wiselj spends the fruitful hours, 
Linked each to each hj labor, like a bee, 
Or rules in Learning's hall, or trims her bowers ; — 
Would there were many more such wights as he, 
To sway each capital academic 
' Of Cam and Isis ; for, alack ! at each 
There dwells I wot some dronish Dominie, 
That does no garden work, nor jet doth teach, 
But wears a floury head, and talks in flowery speech I 



EPIGRAMS 

ON THE ART-UNIONS. 



That picture-raffles will conduce to nourish 
Design, or cause good Coloring to flourish. 
Admits of logic-chopping and wise sawing, 
But surely Lotteries encourage Drawing ! 



the superiority of machinery. 

A MECHANIC his labor will often discard 

If the rate of his pay he dislikes : 
But a clock — and its case is uncommonly hard 

Will continue to work though it st?Hkos. 



THE FOKGE: 

A ROMANCE OF THE IRON AGE. 



** Who 's here, beside foul weather ?" — King Leae. 

" Mine enemy's dog, though he had bit me, • 

Should have stood that night against my fire.*' — Cordklia 



PART I. 
Like a dead man gone to his shroud, 
The sun has sunk in a coppery cloud, 
And the wind is rising squally and loud 

With many a stormy token, — 
Playing a wild funereal air, 
Through the branches bleak, bereaved, and bare, 
To the dead leaves dancing here and there — 

In short, if the truth were spoken, 
It 's an ugly one for anywhere, 

But an awful night for the Brocken. 

For, ! to stop 
On that mountain top. 
After the dews of evening drop, 

Is always a dreary frolic — 
Then what must it be when Nature groans, 
And the very mountain murmurs and moans 

As if it writhed with the colic — 
With other strange supernatural tones, 
From wood, and water, and echoing stones, 
Not to forget unburied bones — 

In a region so diabolic ! 
A place where he whom wo call Old Scratch, 
By help of his Witches — a precious batch — - 



THE EOKGIE. ' 343 

Gives midnight concerts and sermons, 
In a pulpit and orchestra built to match 
A plot right worthy of him to hatch, 
And well adapted, he knows, to catch 

The musical, mystical Germans ! 

However, it 's quite 
As wild a night 
As ever was known on that sinister height 

Since the Demon- Dance was morriced — • 
The earth is dark, and the sky is scowling, 
And the blast through the pines is howling and growling 
As if a thousand wolves were prowling 
About in the old Black Forest ! 

Madly, sadly, the tempest raves 

Through the narrow gulleys and hollow cave« 

And bursts on the rocks in windy waves. 

Like the billows that roar 

On a gusty shore 
Mourning over the mariners' graves — 
Nay, more like a frantic lamentation 

From a howling set 

Of demons met 
To wake a dead relation. 

Badly, madly, the vapors fly 
Over the dark distracted sky, 

At a pace that no pen can paint ! 
Black and vague like the shadows of dreams 
Scudding over the moon that seems 
Shorn of half her usual beams. 

As pale as if she would faint I 

The lightning flashes, 
The thunder crashes, 



b44 THE FOllGE. 

The trees encounter Avith horrible clashcS; 
While rolling up from marish and bog, 
Rank and rich, 
As from Stygian ditch, 
Rises a foul sulphureous fog, 
Hinting that Satan hirjflself is agog, — 
But, leaving at once this heroical pitch, 
The night is a very bad night, in which 
You would n't turn out a dog. 

Yet ONE there is abroad in the storm. 

And whenever by chance 

The moon gets a glance, 
She spies the traveller's lonely form. 
Walking, leaping, striding along, 
As none can do but the super-strong ; 
And flapping his arms to keep him warm. 
For the breeze from the north is a regular starver, 

And. to tell the truth, 

More keen, in sooth, 
And cutting than any German carver ! 

However, no time it is to lag ; 
And on he scrambles from crag to crag, 
Like one determined never to flag — 
Now weathers a block 
Of jutting rock. 
With hardly room for a toe to wag ; 
But holding on by a timber-snag, 
That looks like the arm of a friendly hag ; 

Then stooping under a drooping bough, 
Or leaping over some horrid chasm, 
Enough to give any heart a spasm ! 

And sinking down a precipice noTi^ 
Keeping his feet the Deuce knows how, 



THE FORGE. 345 

In spots whence all creatures would keep aloof. 

Except the goat, with his cloven hoof, 

Who clings to the shallowest ledge as if 

He grew like the weed on the face of the cliff! 

So down, still down, the traveller goes, 

Safe as the chamo'is amid his snows, 

Though fiercer than ever the hurricane blows, 

And round him eddy, with whirl and whizz, 
Tornadoes of hail, and sleet, and rain, 
Enou2;h to bewilder a weaker brain. 

Or blanch any other visage than his. 
Which, spite of lightning, thunder, and hail, 
The blinding sleet, and the freezing gale, 
And the horrid p^byss. 
If his foot should miss. 
Instead of tending at all to pale, 
Like cheeks that feel the chill of affright — 
Remains — the very reverse of white ! 

His heart is granite — his iron nerve 

Feels no convulsive tw^itches ; 
And as to his foot, it does not swerve, 
Though the screech-owls are flitting about him that serve 

For parrots to Brocken Witches .' 

Nay, full in his very path he spies 

The gleam of the wehr w^olf's horrid eyes : 

But if his members quiver — 
It is not for that — no, it is not for that — 
Nor rat, nor cat, as black as your hat. 
Nor the snake that hissed, nor the toad that spat, 
Nor glimmering candles of dead men's fat, 
Nor even the flap of the vampire bat. 
No anserine skin would rise thereat, 

It 's the cold that makes Him shiver ! 



346 THE FORGE. 

So down, still down, through gully and glen, 
Never trodden bj foot of men, 
Past the eagle's nest, and the she- wolf's den, 
Never caring a jot how sleep 
Or how narrow the track he has to keep, 
Or how wide and deep 
An abyss to leap, 
Or what may fly, or walk, or creep, 
Down he hurries through darkness and storm, 
Flapping his arms to keep him warm — 
Till, threading many a pass abhorrent. 

At last he reaches the mountain gorge, 
And takes a path along by a torrent — 
The very identical path, by St. George ! 
Down which young Fridolin went to the Forge, 
With a message meant for his own death-warrant ! 

Young Fridolin ! young Fridolin ! 
So free from sauce, and sloth, and sin, 
The best of pages, 
Whatever their ages. 
Since first that singular fashion came in — 
Not he like those modern and idle young gluttons 
With little jackets, so smart and spruce, 
Of Lincoln green, sky-blue, or puce — 
And a little gold-lace you may introduce — 
Very showy, but as for use, 
Not worth so many buttons ! 

Young Fridolin ! young Fridolin ! 

Of his duty so true a fulfiller — 
But here we need no further go, 
For whoever desires the tale to kno^^ 

May read it all in Schiller. 

Faster now the traveller speeds. 

Whither his guiding beacon leads, 



THE FORGE. 347 

For by yonder glare 
In the murky air, 
He knows that the Eisen Hutte is there ! 

With its sooty Cyclops, savage and grim, 
Hosts a guest had better forbear, 
Whose thoughts are set u}X)n dainty fare — 
But, stiff with cold in every limb. 
The furnace fire is the bait for Him ! 

Faster and faster still he goes, 

Whilst redder and redder the welkin glows, 

And the lowest clouds that scud in the sky 

Get crimson fringes in flitting by. 

Till, lo ! amid the lurid light, 

The darkest object intensely dark, 

Just where the bright is intensely bright, 

The Forge, the Forge itself is in sight, 

Like the pitch-black hull of a burning bark, 
With volleying smoke, and many a spark, 

Yomiting fire, red, yellow, and white ! 

Restless, quivering tongues of flame ! 
Heavenward striving still to go, 
While others, reversed in the stream below, 
Seem seeking a place we will not name, 
But well that traveller knows the same. 
Who stops and. stands, 
So rubbing his hands. 
And snufiing the rare 
Perfumes in the air, 
For old familiar odors are there. 
And then, direct by the shortest cut. 
Like Alpine marmot, whom neither rut. 
Rivers, rocks, nor thickets rebut. 
Makes his way to the blazing hut ! 



348 THE FORGE. 



PART II. 



Idlj watching the furnace-flames, 
The men of tlie stithy 
Are in their smithy, 
Brutal monsters, with bulky frames, 
Beings Humanity scarcely claims. 
But hybrids rather of demon race, 
Unblessed by the holy rite of grace, 
Who never had gone by Christian names, 
Mark, or Matthew, Peter, or James — 
Naked, foul, unshorn, unkempt. 
From touch of natural shame exempt, 
Thino;s of which Delirium has dreamt — 
But wherefore dwell on these verbal sketches, 
When traced with frightful truth and vigor, 
Costume, attitude, face, and figure, 
Retsch has drawn the very wretches ! 

However, there they lounge about. 
The grim, gigantic fellows, 

Hardly hearing the storm without, 
That makes so very dreadful a rout, 
For the constant roar 
From the furnace door. 
And the blast of the monstrous bellows t 

0, what a scene 
That Forge had been 
For Sal va tor Rosa's study ! 
With wall, and beam, and post, and pin. 
And those ruffianly creatures, like Shapes of Sin ! 
Hair, and eyes, and rusty skin ; 
Illumed by a light so ruddy. 
The hut, and whatever there is therein. 
Looks either red-hot or bloody ! 



THE FORGE. 349 

And, ! to hear the frequent burst 
Of strange extravagant hiughter, 
Harsh and hoarse, 
And resounding perforce 
From echoino- roof and rafter ! 

a 

Though curses, the worst 
That ever were curst, 
And threats that Cain invented the first, 
Come growling the instant after ! 

But again the liveher peal is rung, 

For the Smith-hight Salamander, 
In the jargon of some Titanic tongue, 
Elsewhere never said or sung, 
With the voice of a Stentor in joke has flung 
Some cumbrous sort 
Of sledo'e-haramer retort 
At Red-Beard, the crew's commander. 

Some frightful jest — who knows how wild. 

Or obscene, from a monster so defiled, • 

And a horrible mouth, of such extent, 

From flapping ear to ear it went, 

And showed such tusks whenever it smiled — 

The very mouth to devour a child ! 

But fair or foul, the jest gives birth 
To another bellow of demon mirth, 

That far outroars the weather. 
As if all the hyenas that prowl the earth 

Had clubbed their lau2;hs too;ether ! 

And, lo ! in the middle of all the din. 
Not seeming to care a single pin, 

For a prospect so volcanic, 
A stranger steps abruptly in, 



850 THE FOKGE. 

Of an aspect rather Satanic : 
And he looks, with a grin, at those Cyclops grim, 
Who stare and grin again at him 

With wondrous little panic. 

Then up to the furnace the stranger goes, 
Eao-er to thaw his ears and nose, 

And warm his frozen fingers and toes — 
While each succeeding minute 
Hotter and hotter the smithy grows, 
And seems to declare, 
. By a fiercer glare, 
On wall, roof, floor, and everywhere, 
It knows the Devil is in it ! 

Still not a word 

Is uttered or heard, 
But the beetle-browed foreman nods and winks, 
Much as a shaggy old lion blinks. 

And makes a shift 
* To impart his drift 

To a smoky brother, who, joining the links, 
Hints to a third the thing he thinks ; 

And whatever it be, 

They all agree 

In smiling with faces full of glee. 
As if about to enjoy high jinks. 

What sort of tricks they mean to play 
By way of diversion, who can say. 
Of such ferocious and barbarous folk. 
Who chuckled, indeed, and never spoke 
Of burning Robert the Jager to coke, 
Except as a capital practical joke ! 

Who never thought of Mercy, or heard her, 
Or any gentle emotion felt ; 



THE FORGE. 351 

But, hard as the iron thej had to melt, 

Sported with Danger and romped with Murder ! 

Meanwhile the stranger, — 

The Brocken Ranger, 
Besides another and hotter post, 
That renders him not averse to a roast, — 
Creeping into the furnace almost, 
Has made himself as warm as a toast — 

When, unsuspicious of any danger, 
And least of all of any such maggot 
As treating his body like a fagot, 
All at once he is seized and shoven 

In pastime cruel, 

Like so much fuel, 
Headlong into the blazing oven ! 

In he goes ! with a frightful shout 
Mocked by the rugged ruffianly band, 
As round the furnace mouth they stand, 
Bar, and shovel, and ladle in hand, 

To hinder their butt from crawlino- out. 
Who, making one fierce attempt, but vain. 

Receives such a blow 

From Red-Beard's crow 
As crashes the skull and gashes the brain, 
And blind, and dizzy, and stunned with pain, 

With merely an interjectional ! 
Back he rolls in the flames again. 
'' Ha ! Ha ! Ho ! Ho ! " That second fall 
Seems the very best joke of all. 

To judge by the roar, 

Twice as loud as before, 
That fills the hut from the roof to the floor, 
And flies a league or two out of the door, 



352 THE FORGE. 

CTp the mountain and over the moor — 
But scarcely the jolly echoes they wake 
Have well begun 
To take up the fun. 
Ere the shaggy felons have cause to quake, 

And begin to feel that the deed they have done. 
Instead of being a pleasant one, 
Was a very great error — and no mistake. 

For why '? — in lieu 
Of its former hue, 
So natural, warm, and florid. 
The furnace burns of brimstone blue. 
And instead of the couleur de rose it threw, 
With a cooler reflection, — justly due — 
Exhibits each of the Pagan crew, 

Livid, ghastly and horrid ! 
But vainly they close their guilty eyes 

Against prophetic fears ; 
Or with hard and horny palms devise 
To dam their enormous ears — 

There are sounds in the air, 
Not here or there, 
Irresistible voices everywhere, 
No bulwarks can ever rebut. 

And to match the screams, 
Tremendous gleams, 
Of horrors that like the phantoms of dreams 

They see with their eyelids shut : 
For awful coveys of terrible things. 
With forked tongues and venomous stings, 
On hagweed, broomsticks, and leathern wings, 
Are hovering round the hut ! 



THE FORGE. 353 

Shapes ! that within the focus bright 

Of the Forge, are like shadows and blots • 
But further off, in the shades of night, 
Clothed with their own phosphoric light. 

Are seen in the darkest spots. 
Sounds ! that fill the air with noises, 
Strange and indescribable voices, 
From hags, in a diabolical clatter — 
Cats that spit curses, and apes that chatter 
Scraps of cabalistical matter — 

Owls that screech, and dogs that yell — 
Skeleton hounds that will never be fatter — 

All the domestic tribes of Hell, 
Shrieking for flesh to tear and tatter, 
Bones to shatter, 
And limbs to scatter, 
And who it is that must furnish the latter 

Those blue-looking men know well ! 
Those blue-looking men that huddle together, 
For all their sturdy limbs and thews. 
Their unshorn locks, like Nazarene Jews, 
And bufialo beards, and hides of leather, 
Huddled all in a heap together, 
Like timid lamb, and ewe, and wether 
And as females say. 
In a similar way, 
Fit for knocking down with a feather ! 

In and out, in and out. 
The gathering goblins hover about, % 

Every minute augmenting the rout ; 
For like a spell 
The unearthly smell 
That fumes from the furnace, chimney and mouthy 

23 



354 THE FORGE. 

Draws them in — an infernal legion — 
From East, and West, and North, and South, 
Like carrion birds from every region, 

Till not a yard square 

Of the sickening air 
But has a Demon or two for its share, 
Breathing fury, woe, and despair. 
Never, never was such a sight ! 
It beats the very Walpurgis Night, 
Displayed in the story of Doctor Faustus ; 

For the scene to describe, 

Of the awful tribe, 
If we were two Gothes would quite exhaust us 
Suffice it, amid that dreary swarm, 
There musters each foul repulsive form 
That ever a fancy overwarm 

Begot in its worst delirium : 
Besides some others of monstrous size, 
Never before revealed to eyes, 
Of the genus Megatherium ! 

Meanwhile the demons, filthy and foul, 
Gorgon, Chimera, Harpy, and Ghoul, 
Are not contented to gibber and howl 

As a dirge for their late commander ; 
But one of the bevy — witch or wizard, 
Disguised as a monstrous flying lizard, 

Springs on the grisly Salamander, 
Who stoutly fights, and struggles, and kicks, 
#And tries the best of his wrestling tricks, — 
No paltry strife. 
But for life, dear life, — 
But the ruthless talons refuse to unfix. 
Till, far beyond a surgical case, 
W^ith starting eyes and black in the face. 



THE FORGE. 355 

Down he tumbles as dead as bricks ! 
A pretty sight for his mates to view ! 
Those shaggy murderers looking so blue 
And for him above all, 
Red-bearded and tall, 
With whom, at that very particular nick, 
There is such an unlucky crow to pick, 
As the one of iron that did the trick 

In a recent bloody affair — 
No wonder, feeling a little sick, 
With pulses beating uncommonly quick, 
And breath he never found so thick, 

He longs for the open air ! 

Three paces, or four, 
And he gains the door ; 
But ere he accomplishes one, 
The sound of a blow comes, heavy and dull, 
And, clasping his fingers round his skull. 
However the deed was done, 

That gave him that florid 
Red gash on the forehead — 
With a roll of the eyeballs perfectly horrid, 
There 's a tremulous quiver. 
The last death-shiver. 
And Red-Beard's course is run ! 

Halloo ! Halloo ! 
They have done for two ! 
But a heavy ish job remains to do ! 

For yonder, sledge and shovel in hand, 
Like elder Sons of Giant Despair, 

A couple of Cyclops make a stand. 
And, fiercely hammering here and there, 
Keep at bay the Powers of Air — 



356 THE FORGE. 

But desperation is all in vain ! — 

They faint — they choke, 

For the sulphurous smoke 
Is poisoning heart, and lung, and brain ; 
They reel, they sink, they gasp, they smother ; 
One for a moment survives his brother, 
Then rolls a corpse across the other ! 

Hulloo! Hulloo! 

And Hullabaloo ! 
There is only one more thing to do — 
And, seized by beak, and talon, and claw. 
Bony hand, and hairy paw, 
Yea, crooked horn, and tusky jaw, 
The four huge bodies are hauled and shoven 
Each after each in the roaring oven ! 

4L. 4L. AL, ^ 

'Jv' TV* •Ts' TV 

The Eisen Hutte is standing still ; 

Go to the Hartz whenever you will,' 

And there it is beside a hill, 

And a rapid stream that turns many a mill ; 

The self-same Forge, — you '11 know it at sight — 

Casting upward, day and night, 

Flames of red, and yellow, and white ! 

Ay, half a mile from the mountain gorge, 

There it is, the famous Forge, 

With its furnace, — the same that blazed of yore, - 

Hugely fed with fuel and ore ; 

But ever since that tremendous revel, 
Whatever iron is melted therein, — 
As travellers know who have been to Berlin. — 

Is all as black as the Devil ! 



TO . 357 

TO . 

COMPOSED AT ROTTERDAM. 

I GAZE upon a citj, — a city new and strange ; 
Down many a watery vista my fancy takes a range : 
From side to side I saunter, and wonder where I am ; 
And can you be in England, and / at Rotterdam ! 

Before me lie dark waters in broad canals and deep, 
Whereon the silver moonbeams sleep, restless in their sleep ; 
A sort of vulgar Venice reminds me where I am ; 
Yes, yes, you are in England, and I 'm at Rotterdam. 

Tall houses with quaint gables, where frequent windows shine, 
And quays that lead to bridges, and trees in formal line. 
And masts of spicy vessels from western Surinam, 
All tell me you 're in England, but I 'm in Rotterdam. 

Those sailors, how outlandish the face and form of each ! 
They deal in foreign gestures, and use a foreign speech ; 
A tongue not learned near Isis, or studied by the Cam, 
Declares that you 're in England, and I 'm at Rotterdam. 

And now across a market my doubtful way I trace, 
Where stands a solemn statue, the Genius of the place ; 
And to the great Erasmus I offer my salaam ; 
Who tells me you 're in England, but I 'm at Rotterdam. 

The coffee-room is open — I mingle in its crowd, — 
The dominos are noisy — the hookahs raise a cloud , 
The flavor now of Fearon's, that mingles with my dram, 
Reminds me you 're in England, and I 'm at Rotterdam. 

Then licre it goes, a bumper — the toast it shall be mine, 
In schiedam, or in sherry, tokay, or hock of Rhine ; 
It well deserves the brightest, where sunbeam ever swam — 
" The Girl I love in England " I drink at Rotterdam ! 

March, 1885. 



d68 THE SlilASON. — LOVE. 

THE SEASON. 

Summer 's gone and over 1 
Fogs are falling down ; 

And with russet tinges 
Autumn 's doing brown. 

Boughs are daily rifled 
Bj the gusty thieves, 

And the Book of Nature 
Getteth short of leaves. 

Round the tops of houses, 
Swallows, as they flit. 

Give, like yearly tenants, 
Notices to quit. 

Skies, of fickle temper, 

Weep by turns, and laugh— 

Night and Day together 
Takino; half-and-half 

CD 

So September endeth — 
Cold, and most perverse — 

But the month that follows 
Sure will pinch us worse ! 



LOVE. 

0, Love ! what art thou, Love ? the ace of hearts. 
Trumping earth's kings and queens, and all its suits ; 

A player, masquerading many parts 

In life's odd carnival ; — a boy that shoots. 

Fi'om ladies' eyes, such mortal woundy darts ; 
A gardener, pulling heart' s-ease up by the roots j 

The Puck of Passion — partly false — part real — "* 

A marriageable maiden's " beau ideal " '? 



FAITHLESS SALLY BROWN. 359 

0, Love ! what art thou, Love? a wicked thino-. 
Making green misses spoil their work at school • 

A melancholy man, cross-gartering ! 

Grave rij^e-faced Wisdom made an April fool ? 

A youngster, tilting at a wedding-ring 7 
A sinner, sitting on a cuttie-stool ? 

A Ferdinand de Something in a hovel. 

Helping Matilda Rose to make a novel 7 

0, Love ! what art thou, Love ? one that is bad 
With palpitations of the heart — like mine — 

A poor bewildered maid, making so sad 
A necklace of her o;arters — fell desim \ 

A poet, gone unreasonably mad, 

Ending his sonnets with a hempen line 7 

0, Love ! — but whither, now 7 forgive me, pray 5 

I 'm not the first that Love hath led astray. 



FAITHLESS SALLY BROWN. 

AN OLD BALLAD. 

Young Ben he was a nice young man, 

A carpenter by trade ; 
And he fell in love with Sally Brown, 

That was a lady's maid. 

But as they fetched a walk one day, 

They met a press-gang crew ; 
Vnd Sally she did faint away, 
Whilst Ben he was brought to. 

The boatswain swore with wicked words. 

Enough to shock a saint, 
That though she did seem in a fit, 

'T was nothing but a feint. 



360 FAITHLESS SALLY BROWN. 

^' Come, girl," said he, " hold up your head, 

He ' 11 be as good as me ; 
For when your swain is in our boat, 

A boatswain he will be." 

So when they 'd made their game of her, 

And taken off her elf, 
She roused, and found she only was 

A coming to herself. 

" And is he gone, and is he gone 7 " 
She cried, and wept outright : 

" Then I will to the water side, 
And see him out of sight." 

A waterman came up to her, — 
"Now, young woman," said he, 

" If you weep on so, you will make 
Eye- water in the sea." 

'' Alas ! they 've taken my beau, Ben, 

To sail with old Benbow ; " 
And her woe began to run afresh. 

As if she 'd said, Gee woe ! 

Says he, " They 've only taken him 
To the Tender-ship, you see; " 

" The Tender-ship," cried Sally BrowB^ 
" What a hard-ship that must be ! 

" ! would I were a mermaid now, 

For then I 'd follow him ; 
But, ! — I 'm not a fish-woman, 

And so I cannot swim. 

" Alas ! I was not born beneath 

The virgin and the scales, 
$0 I must curse my cruel stars, 

And walk about in Wales." 



BIANCA'S DREAM. 361 

Now Ben had sailed to many a place 

That 's underneath the world ; 
But in two years the ship came home. 

And all her sails were furled. 

But when he called on Sally Brown, 

To see how she got on, 
He found she 'd got another Ben, 

Whose Christian name was John. 

'^ 0, Sally Brown, 0, Sally Brown, 

How could you serve me so ? 
I 've met with many a breeze before, 

But never such a blov/ ! " 

Then reading on his 'bacco-box, 

He heaved a heavy sigh, 
And then began to eye his pipe, 

And then to pipe his eye. 

And then he tried to sing '' All 's Well,'' 

But could not, though he tried : 
His head was turned, and so he chewed 

His pigtail till he died. 

His death, which happened in his berth, 

At forty-odd befell : 
They went and told the sexton, and 

The sexton tolled the bell. 



BIANCA'S DREAM. 

A VENETIAN STORY - 

BiANCA ! — fair Bianca ! — who could dwell 
With safety on her dark and hazel gaze. 

Nor find there lurked in it a witching spell, 
Fatal to balmy nights and blessed days ? 



%2 bianca's dkeam. 

The peaceful breath that made the bosom swell 

She turned to gas, and set it in a blaze ; 
Each eye of hers had Love's Eupjrion in it. 
That he could light his link at in a minute. 

So that, wherever in her charms she shone, 
A thousand breasts were kindled into flame ; 

Maidens who cursed her looks forgot their own, 

And beaux were turned to flambeaux where she came 

All hearts indeed were conquered but her own, 
Which none could ever temper down or tame : 

In short, to take our haberdasher's hints, 

She might have written over it, — " From Flints." 

She was, in truth, the wonder of her sex. 

At least in Venice — where with eyes of browA 

Tenderly languid, ladies seldom vex 

An amorous gentle with a needless frown ; 

Where gondolas convey guitars by pecks, 

And love at casements climbeth up and down, 

Whom, for his tricks and custom in that kind, 

Some have considered a Venetian blind. 

Howbeit, this dijfference was quickly taught. 
Amongst more youths who had this cruel jailej 

To hapless Julio — all in vain he sought 

With each new moon his hatter and his tailor • 

In vain the richest padusoy he bought. 

And went in bran-new beaver to assail her — 

As if to show that Love had made him smart 

All over — and not merelv round his heart. 

In vain he labored through the sylvan park 
Bianca haunted in — that where she came 

Her learned eyes in wandering might mark 
The twisted cipher of her maiden name, 



bianca's dream. 868 

Wholesomely going through a course of bark : 

No one was touched or troubled by his flame, 
Except the Dryads, those old maids that grow 
In trees, — like wooden dolls in embryo. 

In vain complaining elegies he writ, 

And taught his tuneful instrument to grieve. 

And sang in quavers how his heart was split, 
Constant beneath her lattice with each eve ; 

She mocked his wooing with her wicked wit, 

And slashed his suit so that it matched his sleevOj 

Till he grew silent at the vesper star, 

And, quite despairing, hamstringed his guitar. 

Bianca's heart was coldly frosted o'er 

With snows unmelting — an eternal sheet ; 

But his was red within him, like the core 
Of old Vesuvius, with perpetual heat ; 

And oft he longed internally to pour 

His flames and glowing lava at her feet, 

But when his burnings he began to spout, 

She stopped his mouth, and put the crater out. 

Meanwhile he wasted in the eyes of men, 
So thin, he seemed a sort of skeleton-key 

Suspended at Death's door — so pale — and then 
He turned as nervous as an aspen-tree ; 

The life of man is three-score years and ten, 
But he was perishing at twenty-three. 

For people truly said, as grief grew stronger, 

*' It could not shorten his poor life — much longer." 

For why, he neither slept, nor drank, nor fed, 
Nor relished any kind of mirth below ; 

Fire in his heart, and frenzy in his head, 
Love had become his universal foe, 



364 bianca's dream. 

Salt in hi» ^w>ir — nightmare in his bed. 

At last, no Afonder wretched Julio, 
A sorrow-ridden tiling, in utter dearth 
Of hope, — made up his uiind to cut her girth ! 

For hapless lovers always died of old, 
Sooner than chew reflection's bitter cud ; 

So Thisbe stuck herself, what time 'tis told 
The tender-hearted mulberries wept blood : 

And so poor Sap|)ho, when her boy was cold. 
Drowned her salt tear-drops in a Salter fl.ood, 

Their fame still breathing, though their breath be past, 

For those old suitors lived beyond their last. 

So Julio went to drown, — when life was dull, " 
But took his corks, and merely had a bath ; 

And once, he pulled a trigger at his skull, 
But merely broke a window in his wrath ; 

And once, his hopeless being to annul, 
He tied a pack-thread to a beam of lath, 

A line so ample, 't was a query whether 

'T was meant to be a halter or a tether. 

Smile not in scorn, that Julio did not thrust 
His sorrows through — 't is horrible to die ; 

And come down with our little all «f dust. 
That dun of all the duns to satisfy ; 

To leave life's pleasant city as we must, 

In Death's most dreary sponging-house to lie^ 

Where even all_ our personals must go 

To pay the debt of nature tliat we owe ! 

So Julio lived : — 'twas nothing but a pet 

He took at life — a momentary spite ; 
Besides, he hoped that time would some day get 
The better of love's flame, however bright. 



bianca's dream. 365 

A thing that time has never compassed yet, 
For love, we know, is an immortal light. 
Like that old fire, that, quite bejond a doubt. 
Was always in. — for none have found it out. 

Meanwhile, Bianca dreamed — 'twas once when night 
Along the darkened plain began to creep, 

Like a young Hottentot, whose eyes are bright. 
Although in skin as sooty as a sweep : 

The flowers had shut their eyes — the zephyr light 
Was gone, for it had rocked the leaves to sleep, 

And all the little birds had laid their heads 

Under their wings — sleeping in feather beds. 

Lone in her chamber sate the dark-eyed maid. 
By easy stages jaunting through her prayeis. 

But listenino; side lonc^ to a serenade, 

That robbed the saints a little of their shares , 

For Julio underneath the lattice played 
His Deh Vieni, and such amorous airs, 

Born only underneath Italian skies, 

Where every fiddle has a Bridge of Sighs. 

Sweet was the tune — the words were even sweeter, 
Praising her eyes, her lips, her nose, her hair. 

With all the common tropes wherewith in metre 
The hackney poets overcharge their fair. 

Her shape was like Diana's, but completer ; 
Her brow with Grecian Helen's might compare. 

Cupid, alas ! was cruel Sagittarius, 

Julio — the weeping waterman Aquarius. 

Now, after listing to such landings rare, 

'T was very natural indeed to go — 
What if she did postpone one little prayer ! — 

To ask her mirror ' if it was not so 7 ' 



366 bianca's dream. 

'T was a large mirror, none the worse for wear, 

Reflecting her at once from top to toe : 
And there she gazed upon that glossy track. 
That showed her front face, though it " gave her back" 

And long her lovelj eyes were held in thrall, 
By that dear page where first the woman reads : 

That Julio was no flatterer, none at all, 

She told herself — and then she told her beads ; 

Meanwhile, the nerves insensibly let fall 
Two curtains fairer than the lily breeds ; 

For sleep had crept and kissed her unawares, 

Just at the half-way milestone of her prayers. 

Then like a drooping rose so bended she. 

Till her bowed head upon her hand reposed ; 

But still she plainly saw, or seemed to see, 

That fair reflection, though her eyes were closed, 

A beauty bright, as it was wont to be, 

A portrait Fancy painted while she dozed : 

'T is very natural, some people say, 

To dream of what we dwell on in the day. 

Still shone her face — yet not, alas ! the same, 

But 'gan some dreary touches to assume, 
And sadder thoughts with sadder changes came — 

Her eyes resigned thei»- light, her lips their bloom, 
Her teeth fell out, her tresses did the same. 

Her cheeks were tinged with bile, her eyes with rheum j 
There was a throbbing at her heart within. 
For, ! there was a shooting in her chin. 

And, lo ! upon lier sad desponding brow 

The cruel trenches of besieging age, 
With seams, but most unseemly, 'gan to show 

Her place was booking for the seventh stage : 



bianca's dream. 367 

And where her raven tresses used to flow, 

Some locks that time had left her in his rage, 
And some mock ringlets, made her forehead shady, 
A compound (like our Psalms) of tete and braidy. 

Then for her shape — alas! how Saturn wrecks, 
And bends, and corkscrews all the frame about. 

Doubles the hams, and crooks the straightest necks, 
Draws in the nape, and pushes forth the snout. 

Makes backs and stomachs concave or convex : 
Witness those pensioners called In and Out, 

Who, all day watching first and second rater. 

Quaintly unbend themselves — but grow no straighter 

So time with fair Bianca dealt, and made 

Her shape a bow, that once was like an arrow ; 

His iron hand upon her spine he laid, 

And twisted all awry her '' winsome marrow." 

In truth it was a change ! — she had obeyed 
The holy Pope before her chest grew narrow. 

But spectacles and palsy seemed to make her 

Something between a Glassite and a Quaker. 

Her grief and gall m.ean while were quite extreme, 
And she had ample reason for her trouble ; 

For what sad maiden can endure to seem 

Set in for singleness, though growing double 7 

The fancy maddened her ; but now the dream, 
Grown thin by getting bigger, like a bubble. 

Burst, — but still left some fragments of its size, 

That, like the soap-suds, smarted, in her eyes. 

And here — just here — as she began to heed 
The real world, her clock chimed out its score ; 

A clock it was of the Venetian breed, 

That cried the hour from one to twenty-four ; 



368 BIANCA'S DREAM. J 

The works moreover standing in some need 

Of workmanship, it struck some dozens more ; 
A warning voice that clenched Bianca's fears, 
Such strokes referring doubtless to her years. 

At fifteen chimes she was but half a nun, 
By twenty she had quite renounced the veil ; 

She thought of Julio just at twenty-one, 
And tliirty made her very sad and pale, 

To paint that ruin where her charms would run ; 
At forty all the maid began to fail, 

And thouo-ht no his-her, as the late dream crossed her, 

Of single blessedness, than single Gloster. 

And so Bianca changed ; — the next sweet even, 

With Julio in a black Venetian bark, 
Rowed slow and stealthily — the hour, eleven, 

Just sounding from the tower old St. Mark, 
She sate with eyes turned quietly to heaven, 

Perchance rejoicing in the grateful dark 
That veiled her blushing cheek, — for Julio brought her 
Of course — to break the ice upon the water. 

But what a puzzle is one's serious mind 
To open ! — oysters, when the ice is thick, 

Are not so difficult and disinclined ; 
And Julio felt the declaration stick 

About his throat in a most awful kind; 
However, he contrived by bits to pick 

His trouble forth, — much like a rotten cork 

Groped from a long-necked bottle with a fork. 

But Love is still the quickest of all readers ; 

And Julio spent, besides those signs profuse 
That English telegraphs and foreign pleaders, 

En help of language, are so apt to use, 



bianca's dkeam. 369 

Arms, shoulders, fingers, all Avere interceders. 

Nods, shruo;s and bends, — Bianca could not choose 
But soften to his suit with more facility, 
He told his storj with so much agility. 

" Be thou my park, and I will be thy dear, 
(So he began at last to speak or quote;) 

Be thou my bark, and I thy gondolier, 
(For passion takes this figurative note ;) 

Be thou my light, and I thy chandelier; 
Be thou my dove, and I will be thy cote ; 

My lily be, and I will be thy river : 

Be thou my life — and I will be thy liver." 

This, with more tender logic of the kind, 
He poured into her small and shell-like ear, 

That timidly against his lips inclined : 

Meanwhile her eyes glanced on the silver sphere 

That even now began to steal behind 

A dewy vapor, which was lingering near, 

Wherein the dull moon crept all dim and pale, 

Just like a virgin putting on the veil : — 

Bidding adieu to all her sparks — the stars, 

That erst had wooed and worshipped in her train, 

Saturn and Hesperus, and gallant Mars — ■ 
Never to flirt with heavenly eyes again. 

Meanwhile, remindful of the convent bars, 
Bianca did not watch these signs in vain, 

But turned to Julio at the dark eclipse, 

With words, like verbal kisses, on her lips. 

He took the hint full speedily, and. backed 

By love, and night, and the occasion's meetness, 

Bestowed a something on her cheek that smacked 
(Though quite in silence) of ambrosial sweetness ; 

That made her think all other kisses lacked. 

21 



370 OVER THE WAY. 

Till then, but what she knew not. of completeness * 
Being used but sisterly salutes tc feel, 
Insipid things — like sandwiches of veal. 

He took her hand, and soon she felt him wring 
The pretty fingers all, instead of one ; 

Anon his stealthy arm began to cling 

About her waist thut had been clasped by none ; 

Their dear confessions I forbear to sing. 

Since cold description would but be outrun ; 

For bliss and Irish watches have the power 

In twenty minutes to lose half an hour ! 



OVER THE WAY. 

»* 1 sat over against a window where there stood a pot with very pretty 
flowers ; and had my eyes fixed on it, when on a sudden the window opened, 
and a young lady appeared whose beauty struck me." — Arabian Nights. 

Alas ! the flames of an unhappy lover 
About my heart and on my vitals prey ; 
I 've caught a fever that I can't get over, 

Over the way ! 

' why are eyes of hazel ? noses Grecian 7 

1 've lost my rest by night, my peace by day, 
For want of some brown Holland or Venetian, 

Over the way ! 

I 've gazed too often, till my heart 's as lost 
As any needle in a stack of hay : 
Crosses belong to love, and mine is crossed 

Over the way ! 

I cannot read or write, or thoughts relax — 
Of what avail Lord Althorpe or Earl Grey ? 
They cannot ease me of my window-tax 

Over the way.' 



OVER THE WAY. 371 

Even on Sunday my devotions vary, 
And from St. Bennet Flint they go astray 
To dear St. Mary Overy — the Mary 

Over the way ! 

! if my godmother were but a fairy, 
With magic wand, how I would beg and pray 
That she would change me into that canary 

Over the way ! 

1 envy everything that 's near Miss Lindo, 
A pug, a poll, a squirrel or a jay — 

Blest blue-bottles ! that buzz about the window 

Over the way ! 

Even at even, for there be no shutters, 
I see her reading on, from grave to gay, 
Some tale or poem, till the candle gutters, 

Over the way ! 

And then — ! then — while the clear waxen taper 
Emits, two stories high, a starlike ray, 
I see twelve auburn curls put into paper 

Over the way ! 

But how breathe unto her my deep regards, 
Or ask her for a whispered ay or nay, — 
Or offer her my hand, some thirty yards 

Over the way ! 

Cold as the pole she is .to my adoring ; — 
Like Captain Lyon, at Repulse's Bay, 
I meet an icy end to my exploring 

Over the way ! 

Each dirty little Savoyard that dances 
She looks on — Punch — or chimney-sweeps in May ; 
Zounds ! wherefore cannot I attract her glances 

Over the way ? 



372 OVER THE WAY. 

Half out she leans to watch a tumbling brat, 
Or yelping cur. run over by a dray : 
But I 'm in love — she never pities that ! 

Over the way ' 

I go to the same church — a love-lost labor ; 
Haunt all her walks, and dodge her at the play ; 
She does not seem to know she has a neighbor 

Over the way ! 

At private theatres she never acts ; 
_ No Crown-and- Anchor balls her fancy sway ; 
She never visits gentlemen with tracts 

Over the way ! 

To billets-doux by post she sIioavs no favor — 
In short, there is no plot that I can lay 
To break my window-pains to my enslaver 

Over the way ! 

I play the flute — she heeds not my chromatics — 
No friend an introduction can purvey ; 
I wish a fire would break out in the attics 

Over the way ! 

My wasted form ought of itself to touch her ; 
My baker feels my appetite's decay ; 
And as for butcher's meat — ! she 's my butcher 

Over the way ! 

At beef I turn ; at lamb or veal I pout ; 
I never ring now to bring up the tray ; 
My stomach grumbles at my dining out 

Over the way ! 

1 'm weary of my life ; without regret 
I could resign this miserable clay 
To lie within that box of mignonette 

Over the way ! 



OVER THE WAY. 373 

I 't-« <itted bullets to my pistol-bore ; 
I 've vo^Yecl at times to rush where trumpets bray, 
Quite sick of Number One — and Number Four 

Over the way ! 

Sometimes my fancy builds up castles airy, 
Sometimes it only paints a ferme ornee, 
A horse — a cow — six fowls — a pig — and Mary, 

Over the way ! 

Sometimes I dream of her in bridal white, 
Standing before the altar, like a fay ; 
Sometimes of balls, and neighborly invite 

Over the way ! 

I 've cooed with her in dreams, like any turtle ; 
I 've snatched her from the Clyde, the Tweed, and Tay ; 
Thrice I have made a grove of that one myrtle 

Over the way ! 

Thrice I have rowed her in a fairy shallop. 
Thrice raced to Gretna in a neat "po-shay," 
And showered crowns to make the horses gallop 

Over the w^ay ! 

And thrice I 've started up from dreams appalling 
Of killing rivals in a bloody fray — 
There is a young man very fond of calling 

Over the way ! 

! happy man — above all kings in glory, 
Whoever in her ear may say his say. 
And add a tale of love to that one story 

Over the way ! 

Nabob of Arcot — Despot of Japan — 
Sultan of Persia — Emperor of Cathay — 
Much rather would I be the happy man 

Over the way I 



374 EPICUEEAN REMINISCENCES. 

With such a lot my heart would be in clover 
But what — O, horror ! — what do I survey ! 
Postilions and white favors ! — all is over 

Over the way ! 



EPICUREAN REMINISCENCES OF A SENTIMENTALIST. 

" My Tables ! Meat it is, I set it down 1 " — Hamlet. 

1 THINK it was Spring — but not certain I am — 

When my passion began fii'st to work ; 
But I know we were certainly looking for lamb, 

And the season was over for pork. 

'T was at Christmas, I think, when I met with Miss Chase, 
Yes, — for Morris had asked me to dine, — 

And I thought I had never beheld such a face, 
Or so noble a turkey and chine. 

Placed close by her side, it made others quite wild 

With sheer envy to witness my luck ; 
How she blushed as I gave her some turtle, and smiled 

As I afterwards offered some duck. 

I looked and I languished, alas ! to my cost. 
Through three courses of dishes and meats ; 

Getting deeper in love — but m^^ heart was quite lost, 
When it came to the trifle and sweets ! 

With a rent-roll that told of my houses and land. 

To her parents I told my designs — 
And then to herself I presented my hand, 

With a very fine pottle of pines ! 

I asked her to have me for weal or for woe, 

And she did not object in the least ; — 
I can't tell the date — but we mariied, I know. 

Just in time to have game at the feast, 



EPICUREAN REMINISCENCES. 875 

We wont to , it certainly was the sea-side ; 

For the next, the most blessed of morns, 
I remember how fondly I gazed at my bride. 

Sitting down to a plateful of prawns. 

0, never may memory lose sight of that year, 

But still hallow the time as it ought ! 
That season the "grass " was remarkably dear, 

And the peas at a guinea a quart. 

So happy, like hours, all our days seemed to haste, 
A fond pair, such as poets have dra^vBj 

So united in heart — so congenial in taste — 
We were both of us partial to brawn ! 

A long life I looked for of bliss with my bride, 
But then Death — I ne'er dreamt about that ! 

0, there 's nothing is certain in life, as I cried 
When my turbot eloped with the cat ! 

My dearest took ill at the turn of the year, 
But the cause no physician could nab ; 

But something it seemed like consumption, I fear,—* 
It was just after supping on crab. 

In vain she was doctored, in vain she was dosed, 
Still her strength and her appetite pined ; 

She lost relish for what she had relished the most, 
Even salmon she deeply declined ! 

For months still I lingered in hope and in doubt, 
While her form it grew wasted and thin ; 

But the last dying spark of existence went out, 
As the oysters were just coming in ! 

She died, and she left me the saddest of men, 

To indulge in a widower's moan ; 
0, I felt all the power of solitude then, 

As 1 ate my first natives alone ! 



376 THE CARELESSE NURSE MAYD. 

But when I beheld Virtue's friends in their cloaks, 
And with sorrowful crape on their hats, 

my grief poured a flood ! and the out-of-door folks I 
Were all crying — I think it was sprats ! 



THE CARELESSE NURSE MAYD 

I SAWE a Mayd sitte on a Bank, 

Beguiled by Wooer fayne and fond ; 

And whiles His flatterynge Yowes She drank, 

Her Nurselynge slipt within a Pond ! 

All Even Tide they Talkde and Kist, 
For She was fayre and He was Kinde ; 
The Sunne went down before She wist 
Another Sonne had sett behinde ! 

With angrie Hands and frownynge Browe, 
That deemd Her owne the Urchme's Sinne, 
She pluckt Him out, but he was nowe 
Past being Whipt for falJynge in. 

She then beginnes to wayle the Ladde 
With Shrikes that Echo answerede round — « 
! foohshe Mayd to be the sadde 
The Momenta that her Care was drownd ! 



ODE TO PERRY. 377 

ODE TO PERRY, 

THE INVENTOR OF THE PATENT PERRYAN PEN. 

*« In this good work, Penn appears the greatest, usefullest of God's instru- 
ments. Firm and unbending when the exigency requires it — soft and 
yielding when rigid inflexibility is not a desideratum — fluent and flowing, 
at need, for eloquent rapidity — slow and retentive in cases of deliberation 
. — never spluttering or by amplification going wide of the mark — never 
splitting, if it can be helped, with any one, but ready to wear itself out 
rather in their service — all things as it were with all men. — ready to em- 
brace the hand of Jew, Christian, or Mahometan, — heavy with the German, 
light with the Italian, oblique with the English, upright with the Roman, 
backward in coming forward with the Hebrew, — in short, for flexibility, 
amiability, constitutional durability, general ability, and universal utility, it 
would be hard to find a parallel to the great Penn." — Perry's Character- 
istics OF A Settler. 

! Patent Pen-inventing Perrian Perry ! 

Friend of the goose and gander, 
That now unplucked of their quill-feathers wander, 
Cackling, and gabbling, dabbling, making merry, 

About the happy fen, 
Untroubled for one penny-worth of pen, 
For which they chant thy praise all Bl'itain througtt, 

From Goose- Green unto Gander- Cleuo;h ! — 



*o" 



Friend to all Author-kind, — 
Whether of Poet or of Proser, — 
Thou art composer unto the composer 
Of pens, — yea. patent vehicles for Mind 
To carry it on jaunts, or more extensive 

Pe;7-?/gTinations through the realms of thought j 
Each plying from the Comic to the Pensive, 

An Omnibus of intellectual sort ! 

Modern improvements in their course we feel ; 
And while to iron-railroads heavy wares, 



t578 ODE TO PERRY. 

Dry goods, and human bodies, pay their fares, 

Mind flies on steel. 
To Penrith, Penrh jn, even to Penzance ; 

Nay, penetrates, perchance, 
To Pennsylvania, or, without rash vaunts, 
To where the Penguin haunts ! 

In times bygone, when each man cut his quill, 

With little Perryan skill, 
What horrid, awkward, bungling tools of trade 
Appeared the writing implements home-made ! 
What Pens were sliced, hewed, hacked, and haggled out, 
Slit or unslit, with many a various snout, 
Aquiline^ Roman, crooked, square, and snubby, 

Stumpy and stubby; 
Some capable of ladye-billets neat, 
Some only fit for ledger-keeping clerk, 
And some to grub down Peter Stubbs his mark, 
Or smudge through some illegible receipt ; 
Others in florid caligraphic plans, 
Equal to ships, and vfiggy heads, and swans ! 

To try in any common inkstands, then, 
With all their miscellaneous stocks. 

To find a decent pen. 
Was like a dip into a lucky box : 

You drew, — and got one very curly, 
And split like endive in some hurly-burly; 
The next unslit, and square at end, a spade ; 
The third, incipient pop-gun, not yet made ; 
The fourth a broom ; the fifth of no avail. 
Turned upwards, like a rabbit's tail ; 
And last, not least, by way of a relief, 
A stump that Master Richard, James or John, 



ODE TO PERRY. 379 

Haxi tried his candle-cookerj upon 
Making " roast-beef! " 

Not so thj Perr jan Pens ! 
True to their M's and N's, 
Thej do not with a whizzing zig-zag split. 
Straddle, turn up their noses, sulk, and spit. 
Or drop large dots, 
Huge full-stop blots, 
Where even semicolons were unfit. 
They will not frizzle up, or, broom-like, drudge 

In sable sludge — 
Nay, bought at proper " Patent Perrjan" shops, 
They write good grammar, sense, and mind their stops 
Compose both prose and verse, the sad and merry — 
For when the editor, whose pains compile 
The grown-up Annual, or the Juvenile, 
Vaunteth his articles, not women's, men's. 
But lays ^' by the most celebrated Pens," 
What means he but thy Patent Pens, my Perry ] 

Pleasant they are to feel ! 
So firm ! so flexible ! composed of steel 
So finely tempered — fit for tenderest Miss 

To give her passion breath. 
Or kings to sign the warrant stern of death — 
But their supremest merit still is this, 

Write w^th them all your days, 
Tragedy, Comedy, all kinds of plays — 
(No dramatist should ever be without 'em) — 

And, just conceive the bliss, — 
There is so little of the goose about 'em. 

One 's safe from any hiss ! 



380 ODE TO PERRY. 

Ah ! who can pamt that first great awful night, 

Big with a blessing or a blight, 
When the poor dramatist, all fume and fret, 
Fuss, fidget, fancjj fever, funking, fright, 
Ferment, fault-fearing, faintness — more f's yet I 
Flushed, frigid, flurried, flinching, fitful, flat^ 
Add famished, fuddled, and fatigued, to that ; 
Funeral, fate-foreboding — sits in doubt, 
Or rather doubt with hope, a wretched marriage, 
To see his play upon the stage come out ; 
No stage to him ! it is Thalia's carriage, 
And he is sitting on the spikes behind it, 
Striving to look as if he did n't mind it ! 

Witness how Beazlej vents upon his hat 
His nervousness, meanwhile his fate is dealt : 
He kneads, moulds, pummels it, and sits it flat, 
Squeezes and twists it up, until the felt, 
That went a beaver in, comes out a rat ! 
Miss Mitford had mis-givings, and in fright, 

Upon Rienzi's night. 
Gnawed up one long kid glove, and all her bag, 

Quite to a rag. 
Knowles has confessed he trembled as for life, 

Afraid of his own " Wife ; " 
Poole told me that he felt a monstrous pail 
Of water backing him, all down his spine, — 
" The ice-brook's temper " — pleasant to the chine ! 
For fear that Simpson and his Co. should fail. 
Did Lord Glengall not frame a mental prayer. 
Wishing devoutly he was Lord knows where ? 
Nay, did not Jerrold, in enormous drouth. 
While doubtful of Nell Gwynne's eventful luck, 

Squeeze out and suck 



ODE TO PERRY. 881 

More oranges with his one fevered mouth 
Than Nelly had to hawk from north to south 1 
Yea, Buckstone, ciianging color like a mullet, 
Refused, on an occasion, once, twice, thrice, 
From his best friend, an ice, 
Lest it should hiss in his own red-hot gullet. 

Doth punning Peake not sit upon the points 
Of his own jokes, and shake in all his joints, 

During their trial 7 

'Tis past denial. 
And does not Pocock, feeling, like a peacock, 
All eyes upon him, turn to very meacock 1 
x\nd does not Planch e, tremulous and blank, 
Meanwhile his personages tread the boards, 

Seem goaded by sharp swords, 
And called upon himself to " w\alk the plank " 7 
As for the Dances, Charles and George to boot. 

What have they more 
Of ease and rest, for sole of either foot, 
Than bear that capers on a hotted floor ! 

Thus pending — does not Mathews, at sad shift 
For voice, croak like a frog in waters fenny 7 — 
Serle seem upon the surly seas adrift 7 — 
And Kenny think he ' s going to Kilkenny 7 — 
Haynes Bayly feel Old ditto, with the note 
Of Cotton in his ear, a mortal grapple 

About his arms, and Adam^s apple 
Big as a fine Dutch codling in his throat 7 
Did Rodwell, on his chimney-piece, desire 
Or not to take a jump into the fire 7 
Did Wade feel as composed as music can 7 
And was not Bernard his own Nervous Man ! 



ODE TO PERRY. 

Lastly, dou't Farley, a bewildered elf, 
Quake at the Pantomime he loves to cater, 
Aud e>:o its changes ring transform himself ? — 

A frightful mug of human delf 7 
A "ipirit-bottle — empty of " the cratur " 7 

A leaden-platter ready for the shelf 7 

A thunderstruck dumb-waiter 7 

To clench the fact, 
Myself, once guilty of one small rash act, 
Committed at the Surrey, 
Quite in a hurry, 
Felt all this flurry, 
Corporal worry, 
And spiritual scurry, 
.Oi^am-devil — attic curry ! 
All going well, 
From prompter's bell, 
Until befell 
A hissing at some dull imperfect dunce — 

There 's no denying 
I felt in all four elements at once ! 
My head was swimming, while my arms were flying 
My legs for running — all the rest was frying ! 

Thrice welcome, then, for this peculiar use. 

Thy pens so innocent of goose ! 
For this shall dramatists, when they make merry, 
Discarding port and sherry. 
Drink— "Perry!" 
Perry, whose fame, pennated, is let loose 

To distant lands, 
Perry, admitted on all hands. 

Text, running, German, Roman, 
For Patent Perryans approached by no man ^ 



^ 



:>[i;mber one. 38 

And when, ah me ! far distant be the hour ! 
Pluto shall call thee to his gloomy bower, 
Many shall be thy pensive mourners, many ! 
And Penury itself shall club its penny 
To raise thy monument in lofty place, 
Higher than York's or any son of War ; 
Whilst time all meaner effigies shall bury, 

On due pentagonal base 
Shall stand the Parian, Perryan, periwigged Perry, 
Perched on the proudest peak of Penman Mawr ! 



Q 



NUMBER ONE. 

YERSIFIED FROM THE PROSE OF A YOUNG LADY. 

It's very hard ! — and so it is, to live in such a row, — 
And witness this that every miss but me has got a beau. — 
For Love goes calling up and down, but here he seems l!C 

shun ; 
I 'm sure he has been asked enough to call at Number One ! 

I 'm sick of all the double knocks that come to Number 

Four ! — 
At Number Three, I often see a lover at the door ; — 
And one in blue, at Number Two, calls daily like a dun, — 
It 's very hard they come so near, and not to Number One ! 

^liss Bell, I hear, has got a dear exactly to her mind, — 
By fitting at the window-pane without a bit of blind ; — • 
But I go in the balcony, which she has never done, 
Yet arts that thrive at Number Five don't take at Numbei 
One ! 

'T is hard, with plenty in the street, and plenty passing by, — 
There 's nice young men at Number Ten, but only rather 
shy; — 



884 NUMBER ONE. 

And INTrs. Smith across the way has got a grown-up son, 
But, la ! he hardly seems to know there is a Number One . 

There 's Mr. Wick at Number Nine, but he 's intent on pelf, 

And though he 's pious will not love his neighbor as him- 
self. — 

At Number Seven there was a sale — the goods had quite 
a run ! 

And here I "ve got my single lot on hand at Number One ! 

My mother often sits at work and talks of props and stays. 
And what a comfort I shall be in her declining days : — 
The v€)ry maids about the house have set me down a nun, 
The sweethearts all belong to them that call at Number One ' 

Once only, when the flue took fire, one Friday afternoon. 
Young Mr. Long came kindly in and told me not to swoon : 
Why can't he come again without the Phoenix and the Suni 
We cannot always have a flue on fire at Number One ! 

I am not old, I am not plain, nor awkward in my gait — 
I am not crooked, like the bride that went from Number 

Eight : — 
I 'm sure white satin made her look as brown as any bun — 
But even beauty has no chance, I think, at Number One ! 

At Number Six they say Miss Rose has slain a score of 

hearts, 
And Cupid, for her sake, has been quite prodigal of darts. 
The imp they show with bended bow. I w^ish he had a gun ! 
But if he had. he 'd never deign to shoot with Number One. 

It 's very hard, and so it is, to live in such a row ! 
And here 's a ballad-singer come to aggravate my woe ; — 
0, take away your foolish song and tones enough to stun — 
There is " Nae luck about the house," I know, at Number 
One! 



LINES ON THE CELEBRATION OF PEACE. 385 

LINES ON THE CELEBRATION OF PEACE. 

BY DORCAS DOVE. 

And is it thus ye welcome Peace, 

From mouths of forty -pounding Bores 1 

0, cease, exploding Cannons, cease ! 
Lest Peace, affrighted, shun our shores ! 

Not so the quiet Queen should come ; 

But like a Nurse to still our Fears, 
With shoes of List, demurely dumb, 

And Wool or Cotton in her Ears ! 

She asks for no triumphal Arch ; 

No Steeples for their ropy Tongues ; 
Down, Drumsticks, down ! She needs no March, 

Or blasted Trumps from brazen Lungs 

She wants no Noise of mobbing Throats 

To tell that She is drawino- nio-h : 
Why this Parade of scarlet Coats, 

When War has closed his bloodshot Eye ? 

Returning to Domestic Loves, 

When War has ceased with all its Ills, 

Captains should cojne like sucking Doves, 
With Olive Branches in their Bills. 

No need there is of vulgar Shout, 

Bells, Cannons, Trumpets, Fife and Drum, 

And Soldiers marching all about, 
To let Us know that Peace is come. 

0, mild should be the Signs, and meek, 

Sweet Peace's Advent to proclaim ! 
Silence her noiseless Foot should speak, 

And Echo should repeat the same. 

25 



386 THE DEMON-SHIP. 

Lo ! where the Soldier walks, alas ! 

With Scars received on foreign Grounds ; 
Shall we consume in colored Glass 

The Oil that should be poured in Wounds ? 

The bleeding Gaps of War to close, 
Will whizzing Rocket-Flight avail 1 

Will Squibs enliven Orphans' Woes 7 
Or Crackers cheer the Widow's Tale? 



THE DEMON-SHIP, 

'T WAS off the Wash — the sun went down — the sea looked 

black and grim. 
For stormy clouds with murkj fleece were mustering at the 

brim ; 
Titanic shades ! enormous gloom ! — as if the solid night 
Of Erebus rose suddenly to seize upon the light ! 
It was a time for mariners to bear a wary eye. 
With such a dark conspiracy between the sea and sky ! 

Down went my helm — close reefed — the tack held freely 

in my hand — 
With ballast snug — I put about^ and scudded for the land. 
Loud hissed the sea beneath her lee ; my little boat flew fast, 
But faster still the rushing storm came borne upon the blast. 
Lord ! what a roaring hurricane beset the straining sail ! 
What furious sleet, with level drift, and fierce assaults of 

hail ! 
What darksome caverns yawned before ! what jagged steeps 

behind ! 
Like battle-steeds, with foamy manes, wild tossing in the 

wind. 
Each after each sank down astern, exhausted in the chasej 
But where it sank another rose and galloped in its place ; 



THE DEMON-SKIP. 387 

As black as night — they turned to white, and cast against 

the cloud 
A snowy sheet, as if each surge upturned a sailor's shroud : 
Still flew my boat ; alas ! alas ! her course was nearly run ! 
Behold yon fatal billow rise — ten billows heaped in one ! 
With fearful speed the dreary mass came rolling, rolling fast, 
As if the scooping sea contained one only wave, at last ! 
Still on it came, with horrid roar, a swift-pursuing grave ; 
It seemed as though some cloud had turned its hugeness to 

a wave ! 
Its briny sleet began to beat beforehand in my face — 
I felt the rearward keel begin to climb its swelling base ! 
I saw its Alpine hoary head impending over mine ! 
Another pulse, and down it rushed, an avalanche of brine ! 
Brief pause had I, on Grod to cry, or think of wife and home ; 
The waters closed — and when I shrieked. I shrieked below 

the foam ! 
Beyond that rush I have no hint of any after deed — 
For I was tossing on the waste, as senseless as a weed. 

4/, ^ AL. 4/, JL. 02* 

-7> "TV -7?- 'Jv -^ -^ 

" Where am I? in the breathing world, or in the world of 

death?" 
With sharp and sudden pang I drew another birth of breath ; 
My eyes drank in a doubtful light, my ears a doubtful sound, 
And was that ship a real ship whose tackle seemed around? 

A moon, as if the earthly moon, was shining up aloft ; 
But were those beams the very beams that I had seen so oft? 
A face that mocked the human face before me watched alone ; 
But were those eyes the eyes of man that looked against 
my own ? 

! never may the moon again disclose me such a sight 
As met my gaze, when first I looked on that accursed night' 



388 THE DEMON-SHIP. 

I 've seen a thousand horrid shapes begot of fierce extremes 
Of fever; and most frightful things have haunted in my 

dreams — 
Hyenas, cats, blood-loving bats, and apes with hateful stare, 
Pernicious snakes, and shaggy bulls, the lion and she-bear, 
Strong enemies, with Judas looks, of treachery and spite — 
Detested features, hardly dimmed and banished by the light 

Pale-sheeted ghosts, with gory locks, upstarting from their 

tombs — 
All fantasies and images that flit in midnight glooms — 
Hags, goblins, demons, lemures, have made me all aghast, — 
But nothing like that Grimly One who stood beside the 

mast ! 

His cheek was black — his brow was black — his eyes and 
hair as dark : 

His hand was black, and where it touched it left a sable 
mark; 

Has throat was black, his vest the same, and when I looked 
beneath. 

His breast was black — all, all was black, except his grin- 
ning teeth. 

His sooty crew were like in hue, as black as Afric slaves ! 

0, horror ! e'en the ship was black that ploughed the inky 
waves ! 

"Alas ! " I cried, " for love of truth and blessed mercy's sake, 
Where am 11 in what dreadful ship? upon what dreadful lake 1 
What shape is that, so very grim, and black as any coal 7 
It is Mahound, the Evil One, and he has gained my soul ! 
'^. mother dear ! my tender nurse ! dear meadows that 

beguiled 
My happy days, when I was yet a little sinless child, — 
My mother dear — my native fields, I never more shall see : 
I 'm sailing in the Devil's Ship, upon the Devil's Sea I " 



SPRING. 389 

Loud laughed that Sable Marin ek, and loudly in return 
His sooty crew sent forth a laugh that rang from stem to 

stern — 
A dozen pair of grimly cheeks were crumpled on the nonce — 
As many sets of grinning teeth came shining out at once : 
A dozen gloomy shapes at once enjoyed the merry fit, 
With shriek and yell, and oaths as well, like dem-J.^i? ^f the Pit, 
They crowed their fill, and then the Chief made answer for 

the whole ; — 
" Our skins," said he, " are black, ye see, because we carry 

coal ; 
You '11 find your mother sure enough, and see your native 

fields — 
F(.r this here ship has picked you up — the Mary Ann of 

Shields ! " 



SPRING. 

A NEW VERSION. 



** Ham. The air bites shrewdly — it is very cold. 
Hor. It is a nipping and an eager air," — Hamlet, 

*' Come, gentle Spring ! ethereal mildness^ come! '' 
! Thomson, void of rhyme as well as reason, 

How couldst thou thus poor human nature hum 'I 
There 's no such season. 

The Spring ! I shrink and shudder at her name ! 

For why, I find her breath a bitter blighter ! 
And sufier from her bloias as if they came 

From Spring the Fighter. 

Her praises, then, let hardy poets sing, 

And be her tuneful laureates and upholders, 

Who do not feel as if they had a Spring 
Poured dowD their shoulders ! 



390 SPRING. 

Let others eulogize her floral shows ; 

From me they cannot win a single stanza. 
I know her blooms are in full blow — and so 's 

The Influenza. 

Her cowslips, stocks, and lilies of the vale, 

Her honey- blossoms that you hear the bees at, 

Her pansies, daffodils , and primrose pale, 
Are things I sneeze at ! 

Fair is the vernal quarter of the year ! 

And fair its early buddings and its blowings — 
But just suppose Consumption's seeds appear 

With other sowings ! 

For me, I find, when eastern winds are high, 

A frigid, not a genial inspiration ; 
Nor can, like Iron-Chested Chubb, defy 

An inflammation. 

Smitten by breezes from the land of plague, 
To me all vernal luxuries are fables, 

! where 's the Spring in a rheumatic leg, 
Stiff as a table's? 

1 limp in agony, — I wheeze and cough ; 

And quake with Ague, that great Agitator ; 
Nor dream, before July, of leaving off 
My Respirator. 

What wonder if in May itself I lack 

A peg for laudatory verse to hang on ? — 

Spring mild and gentle ! — yes, a Spring-heeled Jack 
To those he sprang on. 

In short, whatever panegyrics lie 
In fulsome odes too many to be cited. 

The tenderness of Spring is all my eye, 
And that is blighted ! 



FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY, 391 

FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY. 

A PATHETIC BALLAD. 

Ben Battle was a soldier bold, 

And used to war's alarms ; 
But a cannon-ball took off his legs, 

So he laid down his arms ! 

Now, as they bore him off the field, 

Said he, " Let others shoot, 
For here I leave my second leg, 

And the Forty-second Foot ! " 

The army-surgeons made him limbs : 

Said he, " They 're only pegs : 
But there 's as wooden members quite 

As represent my legs ! " 

Now, Ben he loved a pretty maid, 

Her name was Nelly Gray ; 
So he went to pay her his devours, 

When he devoured his pay ! 

But when he called on Nelly Gra^, 

She made him quite a scoff; 
And when she saw his wooden leg^ 

Began to take them off ! 

" 0, Nelly Gray ! 0, Nelly Gray 

Is this your love so warm ? 
The love that loves a scarlet coat 

Should be more uniform ! " 

Said she, • ' I loved a soldier onc6 

For he was blithe and brave ; 
But I will never have a man 

With both legs in the grave ? 



80ii FAITHLESS NELLY UKAY. 

' " Before jou had those timber toes, 
Your love I did allow. 
But then, you know, you stand upon 
x\nother footing now ! " 

" 0, Nelly Gray ! 0, Nelly Gray ! 

For all your jeering speeches. 
At duty's call, I left my legs. 

In Badajos's breaches ! " 

" Why then," said she, "you 've lost the feet 

Of legs in war's alarms, 
And now you cannot wear your shoes 

Upon your feats of arms ! " 

'•0, false and fickle Nelly Gray ! 

I know w^hy you refuse : — 
Though I 've no feet — some other man 

Is standing in my shoes ! 

" I wish I ne'er had seen your face ; 

But, now, a lopg farewell ! 
For you will be my death ; — alas 

You will not be my Nell ! " 

Now, when he went from Nelly Gray, 

His heart so heavy got. 
And life was such a burthen grown, 

It made him take a knot ! 

Sc round his melancholy neck 

A rope he did entwine. 
And, for his second time in life, 

Enlisted in the Line ! 

One end he tied around a beam, 

And then removed his pegs, 
And, as his legs were off, — of course, 

He soon was off his legs ! 



THE FLOWER. 39S 

And there he hung, till he was dead 

As any nail in town, — 
For, though distress had cut him up. 

It could not cut him down ! 

A dozen men sat on his corpse, 

To find out why he died — 
And they buried Ben in four cross-roads, 

With a stake in his inside ! 



THE FLOWER. 



Alone, across a foreign plain, 

The exile slowly wanders, 
And on his isle beyond the main 

With saddened spirit ponders ; 

This lovely isle beyond the sea. 
With all its household treasures ] 

Its cottage homes, its merry birds, 
And all its rural pleasures ; 

Its leafy woods, its shady vales, 
Its moors, and purple heather ; 

Its verdant fields bedecked with stars 
His childhood loved to gather ; 

When, lo ! he starts, with glad surprise, 
Home-joys come rushing o'er him. 

For "modest, wee, and crimson- tipped," 
He spies the flower before him ! 

With eager haste he stoops him down, 
His eyes with moisture hazy. 

And as he plucks the simple bloom 
He murmurs, " Lawk-a-daisy ! " 



894 THE SEA-SPELL. 

THE SEA-SPELL. 

" Cauldf cauldy he lies beneath the deep." — Old Scotch Ballad, 

It was a jolly mariner ! 
The tallest man of three, — . 
He loosed his sail against the wind, 
And turned his boat to sea : 
The ink-black sky told every eye 
A. storm was soon to be ! 

But still that jolly mariner 

Took in no reef at all, 

For, in his pouch, confidingly, 

He wore a baby's caul ; 

A thing, as gossip-nurses know, 

That always brings a squall ! 

His hat was new, or, newly glazed. 
Shone brightly in the sun ; 
His jacket, like a mariner's, 
True blue as e'er was spun : 
His ample trousers, like St. Paul, 
Bore forty stripes save one. 

And now the fretting, foaming tide 

He steered away to cross ; 

The bounding pinnace played a game 

Of dreary pitch and toss ; 

A game that, on the good dry land, 

Is apt to bring a loss ! 

Good Heaven befriend that little boat, 

And guide her on her way ! 

A boat, they say, has canvas wings, 

But cannot fly away ! 

Though, like a merry singing-bird, 

She sits upon the spray ! 



THE SEA-SPELL. 395 

Still south by east the little boat, 

With tawnj sail, kept beating : 

Now out of sight, between two waves. 

Now o'er the horizon fleeting: 

Like greedy swine that feed on mast, — 

The waves her mast seemed eating ! 

The sullen sky grew black above, 

The wave as black beneath ; 

Each roaring billow showed full soon 

A white and foamy wreath ; 

Like angry dogs that snarl at first, 

And then display their teeth. 

The boatman looked against the wind, 

The mast began to creak, 

The wave, per saltum, came and dried, 

In salt, upon his cheek ! 

The pointed wave against him reared, 

As if it owned a pique ! 

Nor rushing wind nor gushing wave 

The boatman could alarm, 

But still he stood away to sea. 

And trusted in his charm : 

He thought by purchase he was safe. 

And armed against all harm ! 

Now thick and fast and far aslant 
The stormy rain came pouring. 
He heard, upon the sandy bank. 
The distant breakers roarins;, — 
A groaning intermitting sound, 
Like Goo' and Mao;of>; snorino^ ! 

The sea-fowl shrieked around the mast, 
Ahead the grampus tumbled, 



396 THE SEA-SPELL. 

And far off, from a copper cloud, 
-The hollow thunder rumbled ; 
It would have quailed another heart, 
But his was never humbled. 

For why? he had that infant's caul ; 
And wherefore should he dread? 
Alas ! alas ! he little thought, 
Before the ebb-tide sped, — 
That, like that infant, he should die, 
And with a waterj head ! 

The rushing brine flowed in apace ; 

His boat had ne'er a deck : 

Fate seemed to call him on, and he 

Attended to her beck ; 

And so he went, still trusting on, 

Though reckless — to his wreck ! 

For as he left his helm, to heave 

The ballast-bags a-weather, 

Three monstrous seas came roaring on, 

Like lions leao;ued too;ether. 

The two first waves the little boat 

Swam over like a feather, — 

The two first waves were past and gone, 

And sinking in her wake ; 

The hugest still came leaping on. 

And hissing like a snake. 

Now helm a-lee ! for throug-h the midst 

The monstei he must take ! 

Ah, me ! it was a dreary mount ! 
Its base as black as ni";ht. 
Its top of pale and livid green. 
Its crest of awful white, 



THE SEA-SPELL. 397 

Like Neptune with a leprosy, — 
And so it reared upright ! 

With quaking sails the little boat 
Climbed up the foaming heap ; 
With quaking sails it paused a while, 
At balance on the steep ; 
Then, rushing down the nether slope, 
Plunged with a dizzy sweep ! 

Look, how a horse, made mad with fear, 

Disdains his careful guide ; 

So now the headlons; headstrono; boat, 

Unmanaged, turns aside, 

And straight presents her reeling flank 

Against the swelling tide ! 

The gusty wind assaults the sail ; 
Her ballast lies a-lee ! 
The sheet 's to windward taut and stiff, 
! the Lively — where is she ? 
Her capsized keel is in the foam, 
Her pennon 's in the sea ! 

The wild gull, sailing overhead, 
Three times beheld emerge 
The head of that bold mariner, 
And then she screamed his dirge ! 
For he had sunk within his grave, 
Lapped in a shroud of surge ! 

The ensuing wave, with horrid foam, 
Rushed o'er and covered all ; 
The jolly boatman's drowning scream 
Was smothered by the squall, 
Heaven never heard his cry, nor did 
The ocean heed his caul. 



898 A sailor's apology for bow-legs. 



A SAILOR'S APOLOGY FOR BOW-LEGS. 

There 's some is born with their straight legs by natur — 

And some is born with bow-legs from the first — 

And some that should have growed a good deal straigbter 

But they were badly nursed. 
And set, you see, like Bacchus, with their pegs 

Astride of casks and kegs : 
I 've got myself a sort of bow to larboard. 

And starboard, 
And this is what it was that warped my legs. 

'T was all along of Poll, as I may say, 
That fouled my cable when I ought to slip ; 
But on the tenth of May, 
When I gets under weigh, 
Down there in Hartfordshire, to join my ship, 
I sees the mail 
Get under sail, 
The only one there was to make the trip. 
. Well — I gives chase. 
But as she run 
Two knots to one, 
There warn't no use in keeping on the race ! 

Well — casting round about, what next to try on, 

And how to spin, 
I spies an ensign with a Bloody Lion, 
And bears away to leeward for the inn, 

Beats round the gable. 
And fetches up before the coach-horse stable : 
Well — there they stand, four kickers in a row. 

And so 
I just makes free to cut a brown 'un's cable. 
But riding is n't in a seaman's natur — 
So I whips out a toughish end of yarn, 



A sailor's apology for bow-legs. 399 

And gets a kind of sort of a land- waiter 

To splice me, heel to heel, 

Under the she-mare's keel, * 
And off I goes, and leaves the inn a-starn ! 

My eyes ! how she did pitch ! 
And would n't keep her own to go in no line, 
Though I kept bowsing, bowsing at her bow-line, 
But always making lee-way to the ditch, 
And yawed her head about all sorts of ways. 

The devil sink the craft ! 
And wasn't she trimendous slack in stays ! 
We could n't, nohow, keep the inn abaft 1 

Well — I suppose 
We had n't run a knot — or much beyond — 
(What will you have on it T) — but off she goes, 
Up to her bends in a fresh-water pond ! 

There I am ! — all a-back ! 
So I looks forward for her bridle-gears. 
To heave her head round on the t'other tack ; 

But when I starts. 

The leather parts, 
And goes away right over by the ears ! 

What could a fellow do, 
Whose legs, like mine, you know, were in the bilboes, 
But trim myself upright for bringing-to. 
And square his yard-arms, and brace up his elbows 

In rig all snug and clever, 
Just while his craft was takinii; in her water 1 
I did n't like my berth, though, howsomedever, 
Because the yarn, you see, kept getting tauter, — 
Says I — I wish this job was rather shorter I 

The chase had gained a mile 
Ahead, and still the she-mare stood a-drinking - 



400 THE bachelor's dream. 

Now, all the while 
Her body did n't take of course to shrinking. 
Says I, she 's letting out her reefs, I'm thinking — 

And so she swelled, and swelled, 

And yet the tackle held, 
Till both my legs began to bend like winkm. 

My eyes ! but she took in enough to founder ! 
And there 's my timbers straining every bit, 

Ready to split, 
And her tarnation hull a-growing rounder ! 

Well, there — off Hartford Ness, 
"We lay both lashed and water-logged together, 

And can't contrive a signal of distress ; 
Thinks I, we must ride out this here foul weather, 
Though sick of riding out — and nothing less ; 
When, looking round, I sees a man a-starn : — 
Hollo ! says I, come underneath her quarter ! — 
And hands him out my knife to cut the yarn. 
So I gets off, and lands upon the road. 
And leaves the she-mare to her own consarn, 

A-standing by the water. 
If I get on another, I '11 be blowed ! — 
And that 's the way, you see, my legs got bowed ! 



THE BACHELOR'S DREAM. 

My pipe is lit, my grog is mixed, 
My curtains drawn and all is snug ; 
Old Puss is in her elbow-chair. 
And Tray is sitting on the rug. 
Last night I had a curious dream. 
Miss Susan Bates was Mistress Mogg 
What d' ye think of that, my. cat 7 
What d' ye think of that, my dog 1 



THE bachelor's DREAM 401 

She looked so fair, she sang so well, 
I could but woo and she was won ; 
Myself in blue, the bride in white, 
The ring was placed, the deed was done! 
Away we went in chaise-and-four, 
As fast as grinning boys could flog — 
What d' ye think of that, my cat 7 
What d' ye think of that, my dog 7 

What loving tete-a-tetes to come ! 
But tete-a-tetes must still defer ! 
When Susan came to live with me, 
Her mother came to live with her ! 
With sister Belle she could n't part, 
But all my ties had leave to jog — 
What d' ye think of that, my cat 7 
What d' ye think of that, my dog 7 

The mother brought a pretty Poll — 
A monkey too, what work he made ^ 
The sister introduced a beau — 
My Susan brought a favorite maid. 
She had a tabby of her own, — 
A snappish mongrel christened Gog,— 
What d' ye think of that, my cat 7 
What d' ye think of that, my dog 7 

The monkey bit — the parrot screamedj 
All day the sister strummed and sung: 
The petted maid was such a scold ! 
My Susan learned to use her tongue ; 
Her mother had such wretched health. 
She sate and croaked like any frog — 
What d' ye think of that, my cat 7 
What d' ye think of that, my dog 7 



26 



402 THE bachelor's dream. 

No longer Dearj, Duck, aud Love, 
I soon came down to simple " M ! '* 
The very servants crossed my wish, 
My Susan let me down to them. 
The poker hardly seemed my own, 
I might as well have been a log — 
What d' ye think of that, my cat ? 
What d' ye think of that, my dog? 

My clothes they were the queerest shape I 
Such coats and hats she never met ! 
My ways they were the oddest ways ! 
My friends were such a vulgar set ! 
Poor Tompkinson was snubbed and huffed. 
She could not bear that Mister Blogg — 
What d' ye think of that, my cat 7 
What d' ye think of that, my dog I 

At times we had a spar, and then 
Mamma must mingle in the song — 
The sister took a sister's part — 
The maid declared her master wrong — 
The parrot learned to call me " Fool ! " 
My life was like a London fog — 
What d' ye think of that, my cat 7 
What d' ye think of that, my dog 7 

My Susan's taste was superfine, 
As proved by bills that had no end ; 
/ never had a decent coat — 
/ never had a coin to spend ! 
She forced me to resign my club. 
Lay down my pipe, retrench my grog-— 
What d' ye think of that, my cat 7 
What d' ye think of that, my dog ? 



THE WEE MAN 403 



Each Sunday night we gave a rout 
To fops and flirts, a prettj list ; 
And when I tried to steal away, 
I found my study full of whist ! 
Then, first to come, and last to ffo, 
There always was a Captain Hogg - 
What d' ye think of that, my cat ? 
What d' ye think of that, my dog ? 

Now was not that an awful dream 
For one who sinde is and snuo- — . 
With Pussy in the elbow-chair. 
And Tray reposing on the ruo- 7 — 
If I must totter down the hill, 
'T is safest done without a closr — 
What d' ye think of that, my cat? 
What d' ye think of that, my dog 7 



THE WEE MAN. 

A ROMANCE. 

It was a merry company, 
And they were just afloat, 

When, lo ! a man, of dwarfish span. 
Game up and hailed tlie boat. 

'' Good-morrow to ye, gentle folks, 
And will you let me in 7 — 

A slender space will serve my case, 
For I am small and thin." 

They saw he was a dwarfish man, 
And very small and thin ; 

Not seven such would matter much 
And so thev took him in. 



104 THE WEE MAN. 

They laughed to see his little hat, 

With such a narrow brim ; 
They laughed to note his dapper coat, 

With skirts so scant and trim. 

But barely had they gone a mile, 

When, gravely, one and all 
At once began to think the man 

Was not so very small. 

His coat had got a broader skirt, 

His hat a broader brim, 
His leg grew stout, and soon plumped out 

A very proper limb. 

Still on they went, and as they went 
More rough the billows grew, — 

And rose and fell, a greater swell, 
And he was swelling too ! 

And, lo ! where room had been for seven, 
For six there scarce was space ! 

For five ! — for four ! — for three ! — not more 
Than two could find a place ! 

There was not even room for one ! 

They crowded by degrees — 
Ay — closer yet, till elbows met, 

And knees were jogging knees. 

'' Good sir, you must not sit astern, 
The wave will else come in ! " 

Without a word he gravely stirred, 
Another seat to win. 

^' Good sir, the boat has lost her trim, 

You must not sit a-lee ! " 
With smiling face and courteous grace, 

The middle seat took he. 



death's ramble. 40i 

But still, by constant quiet growth. 

His back became so wide. 
Each neighbor wigiit, to left and right, 

Was thrust against the side. 

«r Lord ! how they chided with themselveSj 
That they had let him in ! 
To see him grow so monstrous now, 
That came so small and thin. 

On every brow a dew-drop stood, 

They grew so scared and hot, — 
" I' the name of all that 's great and tall, 

Who are ye, sir, and what ? " 

Loud laughed the Gogmagog, a laugh 

As loud as giant's roar — 
" When first I came, my proper name 

Was Little — now I 'm Moore ! " 



DEATH'S RAMBLE. 

One day the dreary old King of Death 
Inclined for some sport with the carnal. 

So he tied a pack of darts on his back, 
And quietly stole from his charnel. 

His head was bald of flesh and of hair, 

His body was lean and lank ; 
His joints at each stir made a crack, and the cui 

Took a gnaw, by the way, at his shank. 

And what did he do wnth his deadly darts, 

This goblin of grisly bone ? 
He dabbled and spilled man's blood, and ho killed 

Like a butcher that kills his own. 



406 death's ramble. 

The first he slaughtered it made him laugh, 

(For the man was a coffin-maker,) 
To think how the mutes, and men in black suits, 

Would mourn for an undertaker. 

Death saw two Quakers sitting at church ; •* 

Quoth he, " We shall not difier." 
And he let them alone, like figures of stone, 

For he could not make them stiffer. 

He saw two duellists going to fight, 

In fear thej could not smother ; 
And he shot one through at once — for he knew 

Thej never would shoot each other. 

He saw a watchman fast in his box 

And he gave a snore infernal ; 
Said Death, " He may keep his breath, for his sleep 

Can never be more eternal." 

He met a coachman driving a coach 

So slow that his fare grew sick ; 
But he let him stray on his tedious way, 

For Death only wars on the quick. 

Oeath saw a tollman taking a toll, 

In the spirit of his fraternity ; 
But he knew that sort of man would extort, 

Though summoned to all eternity. 

He found an author writing his life. 

But he let him write no further ; 
^^"'or Death, who strikes whenever he likes, 

Is jealous of all self-murther ! 

Death yaw a patient that pulled out his purse, 

And a doctor that took the sum ; 
But ho let them be • —for he knew that tlie '' fee" 

Was '-i protude to " faw " and " fura." 



THE PROGRKSS OF ART. 407 

He met a dustman ringing a bell, 

And he gave him a mortal thrust ; 
For himself, by law, since Adam's flaw, 

Is contractor for all our dust. 

He saw a sailor mixing his grog, 

And he marked him out for slauo;hter ; 

For on water he scarcely had cared for death, 
And never on rum-and-water. 

Death saw two players playing at cardsj 
But the game wasn't worth a dump, 

For he quickly laid them flat with a spade, 
To wait for the final trump ! 



THE PROGRESS OF ART. 

HAPPY time ! — Art's early days ! 
"When o'er each deed, with sweet self-praise, 

Narcissus-like I huno- ! 

o 

When great Rembrandt but little seemed. 
And such Old Masters all were deemed 
As nothing to the young ! 

Some scratchy strokes — abrupt and few. 
So easily and SAVJft I drew, 

Sufficed for my design ; 
My sketchy, superficial hand, 
Drew solids at a dash — and spanned 

A surface with a line. 

Not long my eye was thus content, 
But grew more critical — my bent 
Essayed a higher walk ; 

1 copied leaden eyes in lead — 
Rheumatic hands in white and red, 

And gouty feet — in chalk. 



408 THE PROGRESS OF ART. 

Anon mj studious art for days 
Kept making faces — happy phrase, 

For faces such as mine ! 
Accomplished in the details then, 
I left the minor parts of men, 

And drew the form divine. 

Old gods and heroes — Trojan — Greek, 
Figures — long after the antique, 

Great Ajax justly feared ; 
Hectors, of whom at night I dreamt, 
And Nestor, fringed enough to tempt 

Bird-nesters to his beard. 

A Bacchus, leering on a bowl, 
A Pallas, that out-stared her owl, 

A Vulcan — very lame ; 
A Dian stuck about with stars, 
With my right hand I murdered Mars — 

(One Williams did the same.) 

But tired of this dry work at last, 
Crayon and chalk aside I cast, 

And gave my brush a drink. 
Dipping — "as when a painter dips 
In gloom of earthquake and eclipse,"— 

That is — in Indian ink. 

then, what black Mont Blancs arose, 
Crested with soot, and not with snows : 

What clouds of dingy hue ! 
In spite of what the bard has penned, 

1 fear the distance did not " lend 

Enchantment to the view."' 

Not Radclyffe's brush did e'er design 
Black forests half so black as mine, 



THE PROGRESS OF ART. 409 

Or lakes so like a pall ; 
The Chinese cake dispersed a raj 
Of darkness, like the light of Day 

And ^lartin, over all. 

Yet urchin pride sustained me still ; 
I gazed on all with right good will, 

And spread the dingy tint ; 
" No holy Luke helped me to paint ; 
The Devil, surely not a Saint, 
Had any finger in 't ! " 

But colors came ! — like morning light, 
With gorgeous hues displacing night. 

Or Spring's enlivened scene : 
At once the sable shades withdrew ; 
My skies got very, very blue ; 

My trees, extremely green. 

And, washed by my cosmetic brush, 
How Beauty's cheek began to blush ! 

With lock of auburn stain — 
(Not Goldsmith's Auburn) — nut-brown hair 
That made her loveliest of the fliir ; 

Not " loveliest of the plain ! " 

Her lips were of vermilion hue ; 
Love in her eyes, and Prussian blue, 

Set all my heart in flame ! 
A young Pygmalion, I adored 
The maids. I made — but time was stored 

With evil — and it came ! 

Perspective dawned — and soon I saw 
My houses stand against its law ; 
And " keeping " all unkept ! 



410 A FAIRY TALE. 

My beauties were no longer things 
For love and fond imaginings ; 
But horrors to be wept ! 

Ah ! why did knowledge ope my eyes 1 
Why did I get more artist- wise ? 

It only serves to hint 
What grave defects and wants are mine ; 
That I 'm no Hilton in design — 

In nature no Dewint ! 

Thrice happy time ! — Art's early days ! 
When o'er each deed, with sweet self-praise, 

Narcissus-like I hung ! 
When great Rembrandt but little seemed, 
And such Old Masters all were deemed 

As nothing to the young ! 



A FAIRY TALE. 

On Hounslow heath — and close beside the road, 
As western travellers may oft have seen, — - 
A little house some years ago there stood, 

A minikin abode ; 
And built like Mr. Birkbeck's, all of wood ; 
The walls of white, the window-shutters green ; — 
Four wheels it had at North, South, East, and West, 

(Though now at r€st,) 
On which it used to wander to and fro. 
Because its master ne'er maintained a rider, 
Like those who trade in Paternoster Row ; 
But made his business travel for itself, 

Till he had made his pelf, 
And then retired — if one may call it so^ 

Of a roadsider. 



A FAIRY TALE. 411 

Perchance, the very race and constant riot 
Of stages, long and short, which thereby ran, 
Made him more relish the repose and quiet 

Of his now sedentary caravan ; 
Perchance, he loved the ground because 't was common, 
And so he might impale a strip of soil, 

That furnished, by his toil. 
Some dusty greens, for him and his old woman ; — 
And five tall hollyhocks, in dingy flower. 
Howbeit, the thoroughfare did no ways spoil 
His peace, — unless, in some unlucky hour, 
A stray horse came and gobbled up his bower ! 

But, tired of always looking at the coaches, 

The same to come, — when they had seen them one day 

And, used to brisker life, both man and wife 
Began to suffer N U E's approaches, 
And feel retirement like a long wet Sunday. — 
So, having had some quarters of school-breedhig. 
They turned themselves, like other folks, to reading • 
But setting out where others nigh have done, 
And being ripened in the seventh stage, 

The childhood of old age, 
Began, as other children have begun, — 
Not with the pastorals of Mr. Pope, 

Or Bard of Hope, 
Or Paley ethical, or learned Person, — 
But spelt, on Sabbaths, in St. Mark, or John, 
And then relaxed themselves with Whittington, 

Or Valentine and Orson — 
But chiefly fairy tales they loved to con. 
And being easily melted in their dotage, 

Slobbered, — and kept 

Reading, — and wept 
Over the White Cat, in their wooden cottage. 



412 A FAIRY TALE. 

Thus reading on — the longer 
Thej read, of course, their childish faith grew stronger 
In Gnomes, and Hags, and Elves, and Giants grim, — 
If talking trees and birds revealed to him, 
She saw the flight of Fairyland's fly-wagons. 

And made fishes swim 
In puddle ponds, and took old crows for dragons, — 
Both were quite drunk from the enchanted flagons ; 
When, as it fell upon a summer's day. 
As the old man sat a feeding 

On the old babe-reading, 
Beside his open street-and-parlor door, 

A hideous roar 
Proclaimed a drove of beasts was coming by the way. 

Long-horned, and short, of many a diflerent breed, 
Tall, tawny brutes, from famous Lincoln-levels, 

Or Durham feed, 
With some of those unquiet black dwarf devils, 

From nether side of Tweed, 

Or Firth of Forth : 
Looking half wild with joy to leave the North, — 
With dusty hides, all mobbing on together, — 
When, — whether from a fly's malicious comment 
Upon his tender flank, from which he shrank ; 

Or whether 
Only in some enthusiastic moment, — 
However, one brown monster, in a frisk, 
Giving his tale a perpendicular whisk, 
Kicked out a passage through the beastly rabble ; 
And after a pas seul, - or, if you will, a 
Hornpipe before the basket-maker's villa, 

Leapt o'er the tiny pale, — 
Backed his beef-steaks against the wooden gable, 
And thrust his brawny bell-rope of a tail 



A FAIRY TALE 413 

Right o'er the page 

Wherein the sage 
Just then was spelling some romantic fable. 

The old man, half a scholar, half a dunce, 

Could not peruse — who could '? — two tales at once ] 

And beini>; LufTed 
At what he knew was none of Riquet's Tuft, 

Banged-to the door, 
But most unluckily enclosed a morsel 
Of the intrudino; tail, and all the tassel : — 

The monster gave a roar. 
And bolting off with speed, increased bj pain. 
The little hous^ became a coach once more, 
And, like Macheath, " took to the road " again ! 

Just then, by fortune's whimsical decree. 
The ancient woman stooping with her crupper 
Towards sweet home, or where sweet home should be 
Was getting up some household herbs for supper : 
Thoughtful of Cinderella, in the tale, 
And quaintly wondering if magic shifts 
Could o'er a common pumpkin so prevail, 
To turn it to a coach, — wdiat pretty gifts 
Might come of cabbages, and curly kale : 
Meanwhile she never heard her old man's wail, 
Nor turned, till home had turned a corner, quite 
Gone out of sight ! 

At last, conceive her, rising from the ground. 
Weary of sitting on her russet clothing ; 

And looking round 

Where rest was to be found. 
There was no house — no villa there — no nothing ! 
No house ! 



414 THE Tup;i)i/i;3 

The change was quite avaazing ; 
It made her senses stagger fjr a minute, 
The riddle's explication seemed to harden ; 
But soon her superannuated no2is 
Explained the horrid mystery ; — and raising 
Her hand to heaven, with the cabbage in it, 

On which she meant to sup, — 
'' Well ! this is Fairy Work ! I '11 bet a farden. 
Little Prince Silverwings has ketchod me up, 
And set me down in some one else's garden ! " 



THE TURTLES. 

A FABLE. 

»' The rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle."— SrtoN. 

One day, it was before a civic dinner, 

Two London Aldermen, no matter which,- 
Cordwainer, Girdler, Pattern-maker, Skinna^ - 

But both were florid, corpulent, and rich, 
And botli right fond of festive demolition, 

Set forth upon a secret expedition. 
Yet not, as might be fancied from the token, 

To Pudding Lane, Pie Corner, or the Streak 
Of Bread, or Grub, or anything to eat. 
Or drink, as Milk, or Yintry, or Portsoken, 
But eastward to that more aquatic quarter, 

Where folks take water. 
Or, bound on voyages, secure a berth 
For Antwerp or Ostend. Dundee or Perth, 
Calais, Boulogne, or any port on earth ! 

Jostled and jostling, through the mud, 
Peculiar to the town of Lud, 
Down narrow streets and crooked lanes they di^ed, 



. THE TUKTLES. 415 

Past many a gusty avenue, through which 

Came yellow fog, and smell of pitch, 
From barge, and boat, and dusky wharf derived ; 
With darker fumes, brought eddying by the draught, 

From loco-smoko-motive craft ; 
Mingling with scents of butter, cheese, and gammons. 
Tea, coffee, sugar, pickles, rosin, wax, 
Hides, tallow, Russia-matting, hemp and flax^ 
Salt-cod, red-herrings, sprats, and kippered salmons, 

Nuts, oranges, and lemons, 
Each pungent spice, and aromatic gum. 
Gas, pepper, soaplees, brandy, gin, and rum ; 
Alamode-beef and greens — the London soil — 
Glue, coal, tobacco, turpentine, and oil. 
Bark, asafoetida, squills, vitriol, hops, 
In short, all Avhiffs, and sniffs, and puffs, and snuffs, 
From metals, minerals, and dyewood stuffs. 
Fruits, victual, drink, solidities, or slops — 
In flasks, casks, bales, trucks, wagons, taverns, shops, 
Boats, lighters, cellars, wharfs, and warehouse-tops, 
That, as we walk upon the river's ridge, 

Assault the nose — below the brido;e. 

A walk, however, as tradition tells, 
That once a poor blind Tobit used to choose, 
Because, incapable of other views. 

He met with " such a sight of smells." 

But on, and on, and on. 
In spite cf all unsavory shocks. 

Progress the stout Sir Peter and Sir John, 
Steadily steering ship-like for the docks — 
And now they reach a place the Muse, unwilling, 
Recalls for female slano; and vul2;ar doino;, 
The famous Gate of Billing 
That does not lead to cooing — 



416 THE TURTLES. 

And now they pass that house that is so ugly 
A customer to people looking smuggFy — 
And now along that fatal hill they pass 
Where centuries ago an Oxford bled, 
And proved — too late to save his life, alas ! — 
That he was ''off his head." 

At last before a lofty brick-built pile 

Sir Peter stopped, and with mysterious smile 

Tinkled a bell that served to bring 

The wire-drawn genius of the ring, 

A species of commercial Samuel Weller — 

To whom Sir Peter, tipping him a wink, 

And something else to drink, 

" Siiow us the cellar." 

Obsequious bowed the man, and led the way 
Down sundry flights of stairs, where windows small, 
Dappled with mud, let in a dingy ray — 
A dirty tax, if they were taxed at all. 
At length they came into a cellar damp, 
With venerable cobwebs fringed around, 

A cellar of that stamp 
Which often harbors vintages renowned. 
The feudal Hock, or Burgundy the courtly. 

With sherry, brown or golden, 

Or port, so olden, 
Bereft of body 't is no longer portly — 
But old or otherwise — to be veracious -— 
That cobwebbed cellar, damp, and dim, and spacious 

Held nothing crusty — but crustaceous. 

Prone on the chilly floor, 
Five splendid turtles — such a five ! 
Natives of some West Indian shore. 

Were flapping all alive, 



THE TURTLES iVi 

Late landed from the Jolly Planter's yawl — 

A sio'lit whereon the di^-nitaries fixed 
Their eager eyes, with ecstasy unmixed, 

Like fathers that behold their infants crawl. 

Enjoying every little kick and sprawl. 

Nay — far from fatherly the thoughts they bred, 

Poor lo2:2;erheads from far Ascension ferried ! 

The Aldermen too plainly wished them dead 
And Aldermanbury'd ! 

'' There ! " cried Sir Peter, with an air 

Triumphant as an ancient victor's, 

And pointing to the creatures rich and rare, 
" There 's picters ! 

''Talk of Olympic Games ! They 're not worth mention ; 
The real prize for wrestling is when Jack, 

In Providence or Ascension, 
Can throw a lively turtle on its back ! " 

'' Ay ! " cried Sir John, and with a score of nods, 
Thoughtful of classical symposium, 

" There 's food for gods ! 
There 's nectar ! there 's ambrosium ! 
There 's food for Roman emperors to eat — 

0, there had been a treat 
(Those ancient names will sometimes hobble us) 

For Helio-gobble-us ! 

" There were a feast for Alexander's Feast ! 

The real sort — none of your mock or spurious ! " 

And then he mentioned Aldermen deceased, 

And '^ Epicurius," 
And how TertuUian had enjoyed such foison ; 
And speculated on that verdi grease 

That is n't poison. 

27 



418 THE TURTLES. 

" Talk of your Spring, and verdure, and all that ! 

Give 7ne green fat ! 
As for your poets with their groves of myrtles 

And billing turtles, 
Give me, for poetry, them Turtles there, 

A-billing in a bill of faie ! 

*'.0f all the things I ever swallow — 
Good, well-dressed turtle beats them hollow ; 
It almost makes me wish, I vow. 
To have two stomachs, like a cow ! " 
And, lo ! as with the cud, an inward thrill 
Upheaved his waistcoat and disturbed his frill, 
His mouth was oozing and he worked his jaw -- 
*' I almost think that I could eat one raw ! " 

And thus, as "inward love breeds outward talk," 
The portly pair continued to discourse ; 
And then — as Gray describes of life's divorce — 
With " longing, lingering look " prepared to walk,- 
Having through one delighted sense, at least. 
Enjoyed a sort of Barmecidal feast, 
And with prophetic gestures, strange to see. 
Forestalled the civic banquet yet to be, 
Its callipash and callipee ! 

A pleasant prospect — but, alack ! 
Scarcely each Alderman had turned his back, 
When, seizing on the moment so propitious, 
And having learned that they were so delicious 

To bite and sup, 
From praises so high flown and injudicious, — 

And nothing could be more pernicious ! 
The Turtles fell to work, and ate each other up ! 



THE DESERT-BORN. 419 

i^oral. 

Never, from folly or urbanity, 
Praise people thus profusely to their faces. 
Till, quite in love with their own graces, 
They 're eaten up by vanity ! 



THE DESERT-BORN. 
•'Fly to the desert, fly with me." — Lady Hester Stanhoi'e. 

^T WAS in the wilds of Lebanon, amongst its barren hills,-— 
To think upon it, even now, my very blood it chills ! — 
My sketch-book spread before me, and my pencil in my hand, 
I gazed upon the mountain range, the red tumultuous sand, 
The plumy palms, the sombre firs, the cedars tall and proud, 
When, lo ! a shadow passed across the paper like a cloud, 
And looking up ,1 saw a form, apt figure for the scene. 
Methought I stood in presence of some oriental queen ! 

The turban on her head was white as any driven snow ; 
A purple bandalette passed o'er the lofty brow below, 
And thence upon her shoulders fell, by either jewelled ear ; 
In yellow folds voluminous she wore her long cachemere ; 
Whilst underneath, with ample sleeves, a Turkish robe of silk 
Enveloped her in drapery the color of new milk ; 
Yet oft it floated wide in front, disclosing underneath 
A gorgeous Persian tunic, rich with many a broidered wreath, 
Compelled by clasps of costly pearl around her neck to meet, 
And yellow as the amber were the buskins on her feet ! 

Of course I bowed my lowest bow ; of all the things on earth. 
The reverence due to loveliness, to rank, or ancient birth, 
To power, to wealtli, to genius, or to any thing uncommon, 
A man should bend the lowest in a Desert to a Womcm ! 



420 THE DESERT-BORN. 

Yet Rome strange influence stronger still, though vague and 

undefined, 
Compelled me, and with magic might subdued mj soul and 

mind : 
There was a something in her air that drew the spirit irgh. 
Beyond the common witclierj that dwells m woman's eje ! 
With reverence deep, like any slave of that peculiar land, 
I bowed my forehead to the earth, and kissed the arid sand ; 
And then I touched her garment's hem, devoutly as a Dervise, 
Pi^edestinated (so I felt) forever to her service. 

Nor was I wrong in auguring thus my fortune from her face ; 
She knew me, seemingly, as well as any of her race ; 
" Welcome ! " she cried, as I uprose submissive to my feet; 
' ' It was ordained that you and I should in this desert meet ! 
Ay, ages since, before thy soul had burst its prison-bars, 
This interview was promised in the language of the stars ! " 
Then clapping, as the Easterns wont, her all-commanding 

hands, 
A score of mounted Arabs came fast spurring o'er the sands, 
Nor reined they up their foaming steeds till in my very face 
They blew the breath impetuous, and panting from the race. 

"Fear naught," exclaimed the radiant one, as I sprang off 

aloof ; 
"Thy precious frame need never fear a blow from hcrse's hoof! 
Thy natal star was fortunate as any orb of birth, 
And fate hath held in store for thee the rarest s-ift of earth." 
Then turning to the dusky men, that humbly waited near, 
She cried, " Go bring the Beautiful — for, lo! the Man is 

here ! " 

Off went the obsequious train as swift as Arab hoofs could flee, 
But Fancy fond outraced them all, with bridle loose and 
free, 



THE DESEKT-BORN. 421 

And brought me back, for love's attack, some fair Circassian 

bride, 
Or Georgian girl, the Harem's boast and fit for Sultan's side ; 
Methought 1 lifted up her veil, and saAV dark eyes beneath, 
Mild as gazelle's, a snowy brow, ripe lips, and pearly teeth, 
A s^yonlike neck, a shoulder round, full bosom, and awai,:5t 
Not too compact, and rounded limbs, to oriental taste. 

Methought — but here, alas ! alas ! the airy dream to blight. 
Behold the Arabs leading up a Mare of milky white ! 
To tell the truth, without reserve, evasion, or remorse, 
The last of creatures in my love or liking is a horse ; 
^Yhether in early youth some kick untimely laid me flat, 
Whether from born antipathy, as some dislike a cat, 
I never yet could bear the kind, from Meux's giant steeds 
Down to those little bearish cubs of Shetland's shaggy breeds; 
As for a war-horse, he that can bestride one is a hero, — 
Merely to look at such a sight my courage sinks to zero. 
With lightning eyes, and thunder mane, and hurricanes of 

legs, 
Tempestuous tail — to picture him description vainly begs ! 
His fiery nostrils send forth clouds of smoke instead of breath ; 
JSfay, was it not a horse that bore the grisly shape of Death '] 
Judge then how cold an ague-fit of agony was mine 
To see the mistress of my fate, imperious, make a sign 
To which my own foreboding soul the cruel sense supplied : 
" Mount, happy man, and 7'2i/i away with your Arabian 

bride!" 
Grim was the smile, and tremulous the voice with which 1 

spoke. 
Like any one's Avhen jesting with a subject not a joke, 
So men have trifled with the axe before the fatal stroke. 

" Lady, if mine had been the luck in Yorkshire to be born 
Or any of its ridings, this would be a blessed morn ; 



422 THE DESERT-BORN. 

But, hapless one! I cannot ride; there's something in a horse 
That I can always honor, but I never could endorse ; 
To speak still more commercially, in riding I am quite 
Averse to running long, and apt to bo paid oiF at sight : 
In legal phrase, for every class to understand me still, 
I never was in stirrups yet a tenant but at will ; 
Or, if you please, in artist terms, I never went a-straddlo 
On any horse without ' a want of keeping ' in the saddle. 
In short," and here I blushed, abashed, and held my head 

full low, 
'' I 'm one of those whose infant ears have heard the chimes 

of Bow!" 

The lady smiled, as houris smile, adown from Turkish skies, 
And beams of cruel kindness shone within her hazel eyes ; 
" Stranger," she said, "or rather say, my nearest, dearest 

friend. 
There 's something in your eyes, your air, and that high 

instep's bend. 
That tells me you 're of Arab race, — whatever spot of earth, 
Cheapside, or Bow, or Stepney, had the honor of your birth, 
The East it is your country ! Like an infant changed at 

nurse 
By fairies, you have undergone a nurtureship perverse ; 
But this — these desert sands — these palms, and cedars 

waving wild, 
All, all, adopt thee as their own — an oriental child; — 
The cloud may hide the sun a while, but soon or late, no doubt, 
The spirit of your ancestry will burst and sparkle out ! 
I read the starry characters — and, lo! 'tis written there, 
Tliou wert foredoomed of sons of men to ride upon this Mare, 
A Mare till now was never backed by one of mortal mould ; 
Ilark! how she neighs, as if for thee she knew^ that she wa$ 

foaled!" 



THE DESERT-BORN. 423 

Ami trulj — I devoutly wished a blast of the simoom 

Had stifled lier ! — the mare herself appeared to mock my 

doom : 
With many a bound she capered round and round me like a 

dance : 
I feared indeed some wild caress would end the fearful prance. 
And felt myself, and saw myself — the fantasy w^as horrid ! 
Like old Redgauntlet, with a shoe imprinted on my forehead ! 
On bended knees, with bowing head, and hands upraised in 

prayer, 
I begged the turbaned Sultaness the issue to forbear ; 
I painted weeping orphan babes, around a widowed wife, 
And drew my death as vividly as others draw from life ; 
" Behold," I said, "a simple man, for such high feats unfit, 
Who never yet has learned to know the crupper from the bit, 
Whereas the boldest horsemanship, and first equestrian skill, 
Would well be tasked to bend so wild a creature to the will." 
Alas ! alas ! 't was all in vain, to supplicate and kneel, 
The quadruped could not have been more cold to my appeal ! 

" Fear nothing," said the smiling Fate, " when human help 

is vain, 
Spirits shall by thy stirrups fly, and fairies guide the rein ; 
Just glance at yonder animal, her perfect shape remark, 
And in thy breast at once shall glow the oriental spark ! 
As for thy spouse and tender babes, no Arab roams the wild 
But for a Mare of such descent would barter wife and child." 

" Nay, then," cried I — (Heaven shrive the lie ! ) "to tel] 

the secret truth, 
'T was my unhappy fortune once to over-ride a youth ! 
A playful child, — so full of life ! — a little fair-haired boy, 
His sister's pet, his father's hope, his mother's darling joy ! 
Ah me ! the frantic shriek she gave ! I hear it ringing now! 
That hour, upon the bloody spot, I made a" holy vow ; 



124 THE DESERT-BORN, 

A solemn compact, deeply sworn, to witness my remorse, 
That never more these limbs of mine should mount on living 
horse ! " 

Good Heaven ! to see the angry glance that flashed upon 

me now ! 
A chill ran all mj marrow through — the drops were on my 

brow ! 
I knew my doom, and stole a glance at that accursed Mare, 
And there she stood, with nostrils wide, that snuffed the 

sultry air. 
IIow lion-like she lashed her flanks with her abundant tail ; 
While on her neck the stormy mane kept tossing to the gale ; 
How fearfully she rolled her eyes between the earth and sky, 
As if in wild uncertainty to gallop or to fly ! 
While with her hoof she scooped the sand as if before she gave 
My plunge into eternity she meant to dig my grave ! 

And I, that ne'er could calmly bear a horse's ears at play — 
Or hear without a yard of jump his shrill and sudden neigh — 
Whose foot within a stable-door had never stood an inch — 
Whose hand to pat a living steed would feel an av/ful flinch, — 
I, that had never thrown a leg across a pony small, 
To scour the pathless desert on the tallest of the tall ' 
For, ! it is no fable, but at every look I cast. 
Her restless legs seemed twice as lono; as when I saw them last ! 

In agony I shook — and yet, although congealed by fears, 
My blood was boiling fast, to judge from noises in my ears ; 
I gasped as if in vacuo, and, thrilling with despair. 
Some secret demon seemed to pass his fingers through my hair. 
I could not stir — I could not speak — I could not even see — 
A sudden mist rose up between that awful Mare and me, — 
[ tried to pray, but found no words, though ready ripe to weep, 
No tear would flo^v, o'er every sense a swoon began to creep. 



THE DESERT-BORN. 425 

Wlien, lo ! to bring my horrid fate at once unto the brunt, 
Two Arabs seized me from behind, two others in the front, 
And ere a muscle could be strung to try the strife forlorn, 
I found myself, Mazeppa-like, upon the Desert-Born ! 

Terrific was the neigh she gave, the moment that my weiglit 
Was felt upon her back, as if exulting in her freight ; 
Whilst dolefully I heard a voice that set each nerve ajar, — 
'^ Off with the bridle — quick ! — and leave his guidance to 
his star ! " 

"Allah ! il Allah ! " rose the shout, and starting with a bound, 
The dreadful Creature cleared at once a dozen yards of 

ground ; 
And grasping at her mane with both my cold convulsive 

hands, 
Away w^e flew — away ! away ! across the shifting sands ! 
My eyes were closed in utter dread of such a fearful race, 
But yet by certain signs I knew we went no earthly pace, 
For turn whichever way we might, the wind with equal force 
Rushed like a torrid hurricane still adverse to our course — 
One moment close at hand I heard the roaring Syrian Sea, 
The next it only murmured like the humming of a bee ! 
And Avhen I dared at last to glance across the wild immense, 
0, ne er shall I forget the whirl that met the dizzy sense ! 
What seemed a little sprig of fern, ere lips could reckon 

twain, 
A palm of forty cubits high, we passed it on the plain ! 
What tongue could tell, — what pencil paint, — what pen 

describe the ride 7 
Now off — now on — now up — now doAvn, — and flung 

from side to side ! 
l ti'ied to speak, but had no voice, to soothe her with its tc*.e ; 
My scanty breath was jolted out with many a ?iiddcH groarv. 



'i2G THE DESERT-BORN. 

Mj joints were racked — my back was strained, so lirmly 1 

had clung — 
My nostrils gushed, and thrice my teeth had bitten through 

my tongue — 
When, lo ! — farewell all hope of life ! — she turned and faced 

the rocks, — 
Kone but a flying horse could clear those monstrous granite 

blocks ! 
So thought I, — but I little knew the desert pride and fire, 
Derived from a most deer-like dam, and lion-hearted sire ; 
Little I guessed the energy of muscle, blood and bone; 
Bound after bound, w^ith eager springs, she cleared each 

massive stone ; — 
Nine mortal leaps were passed before a huge gray rock at 

length 
Stood planted there as if to dare her utmost pitch of strength ; 
My time was come ! that granite heap my monument of 

death ! 
She paused, she snorted loud and long, and drew a fuller 

breath ; 
Nine strides, and then a louder beat that warned me of her 

spring, 
I felt her rising in the air like eagle on the wing — 
But, ! the crash ! — the hideous shock ! — the million sparks 

around ! 
Her hindmost hoofs had struck the crest of that prodigious 

mound ! 
Wild shrieked the headlong Desert-Born — or else 't was 

demons' mirth, 
One second more, and Man and Mare rolled breathless on 

the earth ! 

ETow long it was I cannot tell ere I revived to sense 
Ajid then but to endure the pangs of agony intense : 



1 



THE DESERT-BORN. 427 

For over me lay powerless, and still as any stone, 

The Corse that erst had so much fire, strength, spirit of its own. 

Mj heart was still — my pulses stopped — midway 'twixt life 

and death, 
With pain unspeakable I fetched the fragment of a breath, 
Not vital air enough to frame one short and feeble sigh. 
Yet even that I loathed because it would not let me die. 

! slowly, slowly, slowly on, from starry night till morn, 
Time flapped along, with leaden wings, across that waste 

forlorn, 

1 cursed the hour that brought me first within this world of 

strife — 
A sore and heavy sin it is to scorn the gift of life — 
But ^ho hath felt a horse's weight oppress his laboring 

breast ? 
Whi any who has had. like me, the Night Mare on his 

chest. 



LOVE LANE. 

If I should love a maiden more, 
And woo her every hope to crown, 
I 'd love her all the country o'er, 
But not declare it out of town. 

One even, by a mossy bank, 

That held a hornet's nest within, 

To Ellen on my knees I sank, — 

How snakes will twine around the shin ! 

A bashful fear my soul unnerved. 
And gave my heart a backward tug ; 
Nor was I cheered when she observed. 
Whilst I was silent, " What a slug ! " 

At length my offer I preferred. 
And Hope a kind reply forebode — 



428 LOVE LANE. 

Alas ! the only sound I heard 
Was, " What a horrid uglj toad ! " 
I vowed to give her all my heart, 
To love her till my life took leave, 
And painted all a lover's smart — 
Except a wasp gone up his sleeve ! 

But when I ventured to abide 

Her father's and her mother's grants-— 

Sudden she started up and cried, 

" dear ! I am all over ants ! " 

Nay, when beginning to beseech 
The cause that led to my rebuff, 
The answer was as strange a speech — 
A " Daddy-Longlegs, sure enough ! '' 

1 spoke of fortune — house, — and lands^ 
And still renewed the warm attack, — 
'T is vain to offer ladies hands 
That have a spider on the back ! . 

'T is vain to talk of hopes and fears, 
And hope the least reply to win. 
From any maid that stops her ears 
In dread of earwigs creeping in ! 

'T is vain to call the dearest names 
Whilst stoats and weasels startle by — 
As vain to talk of mutual flames 
To one with glowworms in her eye ' 

What checked me in my fond address, 
And knocked each pretty image down ? 
What stopped my Ellen's faltering yes 1 
A caterpillar on her gown ! 

To list to Philomel is sweet — 
To see the moon rise silver-pale,—- 



DOMESTIC POEMS. 429 

But not to kneel at lady's feet 
And crush a rival in a snail ! 

Sweet is the eventide, and kind 
Its zephyr, balmy as the south : 
But sweeter still to speak your mind 
Without a chafer in your mouth ! 

At last, emboldened by my bliss, 

Still fickle Fortune played me foul, 

For when I strove to snatch a kiss 

She screamed — by proxy, through an owl ! 

Then, lovers, doomed to life or death, 
Shun moonlight, twilight, lanes and bats, 
Lest you should have in self-same breath 
To bless your fate — and curse the gnats ! 



DOTklESTIC POEMS. 



" It's hamc, hame, hame." — A. Cdkningham. 
*' There 's no place like home." — Clari. 

I. 

HYMENEAL RETROSPECTIONS. 

Kate ! my dear partner, through joy and through strife! 

When I look back at Hymen's dear day, 
Not a lovelier bride ever changed to a wife, ' 

Though you 're now so old, wizened, and gray . 

Those eyes, then, were stars, shining rulers of fate ; 

But as licj^uid as stars in a pool ; 
Though now they're so dim, they appear, my dear Kate, 

Just like gooseberries boiled for a fool ! 

That brow was like marble, so smooth and so fair ; 
Though it 's wrinkled so crookedly now, 



idO DOMESTIC POEMS. 

Is if Timej when those furrows were made by the share, 
Had been tipsy whilst driving his plough ! 

Your nose, it was such as the sculptors all chose, 

When a Venus demanded their skill ; 
Though now it can hardly be reckoned a nose, 

But a sort of Poll-Parroty bill ! 

Your mouth, it was then quite a bait for the bees, 
Such a nectar there hung on each lip ; 

Though now it has taken that lemon-like squeeze. 
Not a blue-bottle comes for a sip ! 

Your chin, it was one of Love's favorite haunts, 
From its dimple he could not get loose ; 

Though now the neat hand of a barber it wants, 
Or a singe, like the breast of a goose ! 

How rich were those locks, so abundant an^ full, 
With their ringlets of auburn so deep ! 

Though now they look only like frizzles of wool, 
By a bramble torn off from a sheep ! 

That neck, not a swan could excel it in grace. 
While in whiteness it vied with your arms : 

Though now a grave 'kerchief you propcsrly place, 
To conceal that scrag-end of your charms ! 

Your figure was tall, then, and perfectly straight. 
Though it now has two twists from upright — 

But bless you ! still bless you ! my partner ! my Kate ! 
Though you be such a perfect old fright ! 



II. 

The sun was slumbering in the west, my daily labors past ; 
On Anna's soft and gentle breast my head reclined at last; 



DOMESTIC POEMS. 431 

The darkness closed around, so dear to fond congenial souls ; 
And thus she murmured atmjear, " Mjlove, we 're out of 
coals ! 

" That Mister Bond has called again, insisting on his rent ; 
And all the Todds are coming up to see us, out of Kent ; 
I quite forgot to tell jou John has had a tipsj fall ; — 
I 'm sure there 's something going on with that vile Mary 
Hall ! 

" Miss Bell has bought the sweetest silk, and I have bought 

the rest — 
Of course, if we go out of town, Southend will be the best. 
I really think the Jones's house would be the thing for us ; 
I think I told you Mrs. Pope had parted with her 7iiis — 

'' Cook, by the way, came up to-day, to bid me suit myself — 
And, what d' ye think 7 the rats have gnawed the victuals 

on the shelf 
And, Lord ! there 's such a letter come, inviting you to fight ! 
Of course you don't intend to go — God bless you, dear, 

good-night! " 



m. 

A PARENTAL ODE TO MY SON, AGED THREE YEARS AND 

FIVE MONTHS. 

Thou happy, happy elf! 
(But stop, — first let me kiss away that tear) — 

Thou tiny image of myself ! 
(My love, he's poking peas into his ear V) 
Thou merry, laughing sprite ! 
With spirits feather-light, 
Untouched by sorrow, and unsoiled by sin — 
(Good heavens! the child is swallowing a pin !) 



132 DOMESTIC POEMS. 

Thou little tricksy Puck ! 
With antic toys so funnily bestuck, 
Light as the singing bird that wings the air — 
(The door ! the door! he '11 tumble do-n-n the stal* ' 

Thou darling of thy sire ! 
(Why, Jane, he '11 set his pinafore afire !) 

Thou imp of mirth and joy ! 
In Love's dear chain so strong and bright a link, 
Thou idol of thy parents — (Drat the boy ! 

There goes my ink !) 

Thou cherub — but of earth ; 
Fit playfellow for Fays, by moonlight pale, 

In harmless sport and mirth, 
(That dog will bite him if he pulls its tail !) 

Thou human humming-bee, extracting honey 
From every blossom in the world that blows. 

Singing in youth's elysium ever sunny, 
(Another tumble ! — that 's his precious nose !) 

Thy father's pride and hope ! 
(He '11 break the mirror with that skipping-rope !) 
With pure heart newly stamped from Nature's miut — 
(Where did he learn that squint?) 

Thou young domestic dove ! 
(He '11 have that jug off, with another shove !) 

Dear nursling of the Hymeneal nest ! 

(Are those torn clothes his best 7) 

Little epitome of man ! 
(He '11 climb upon the table, that 's his plan !) 
Touched with the beauteous tints of dawning life — >• 

(He 's got a knife !) 

Thou enviable being ! 
No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky foreseeing, 



DOMESTIC POEMS. 433 

Play oiij plaj on, 

Mj elfin John ! 
Toss the light ball — bestride the stick — 
(I knew so many cakes would make him sick !) 
With f:incics. buoyant as the thistle-down, 
Prompting the face grotesque, and antic brisk, 

With many a lamb-like frisky 
(He 's got the scissors, snipping at your gown!) 

Thou pretty opening rose ! 
(Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose !) 
Balmy and breathing music like the South, 
(He really brings my heart into my mouth ! ) 
Fresh as the morn, and brilliant as its star, — 
(I wish that window had an iron bar !) 
Bold as the hawk, yet gentle as the dove, — 

(I '11 tell you what, my love, 
I cannot write, unless he 's sent above ! ) 



IV. 

A SERENADE. 

" Lullaby, 0, lullaby ! " 
Thus I heard a father cry, 

"Lullaby, 0, lullaby! 
The brat will never shut an eye; 
Hither come, some power divine! 
Close his lids, or open mine ! " 

" Lullaby, 0, lullaby ! 
What the devil makes him cry 1 

Lullal^y, 0. lullaby ! 
Still he stares — I wonder why, 
Why are not the sons of earth 
Blind, like puppies, from the birth ? ^• 

28 



184 A PLAIN JJlUElTlON. 

''Lullaby, 0, lulkby !" 
Thus I heard the father crj ; 

'' Lullaby, 0, lullaby ! 
Mary, you must come and try ! — 
Hush, 0, hush, for mercy's sake — 
The more I sing, the more you wake ! 

"Lullaby, 0, lullaby ! 
Fie, you little creature, fie ! 

Lullaby, 0, lullaby ! 
Is no poppy-syrup nigh i 
Give him some, or give him all, 
I am nodding to his fall ! " 

"Lullaby, 0, lullaby! 
Two such nights and I shall die ! 

Lullaby, 0, lullaby ! 
He '11 be bruised, and so shall I, — 
How can I from bed-posts keep, 
When I 'm walking in my sleep ! " 

"Lullaby, 0, lullaby! 
Sleep his very looks deny — ■ 

Lullaby, 0, lullaby ! 
Nature soon will stupefy — 
My nerves relax, — my eyes grow dim — 
Who 's t-bat fallen — me or him? " 



A PLAIN DIRECTION. 

" Do you never deviate 1" — John Bull. 

In London once I lost my way in faring to and fro, 
And asked a little ragged boy the way that I should go ; 
He gave a nod, and then a wink, and told me to get there 
■ Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square.'* 



A PLAIN DIRECTION. 436 

I boxed his little saucj ears, and then away I strode j 

But since I 've found that weary path is quite a common road, 

Utopia is a pleasant place, but how shall I get there '? 

'' Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square.'^ 

I 've read about a famous town that drove a famous trade, 
Where Whittington walked up and found a fortune ready made. 
The very streets are paved with gold : but how shall I get 

there 7 
'• Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square." 

I've read about a Fairy Land, in some romantic tale, 
Where dwarfs if good are sure to thrive and wicked giants fail ; 
My wish is great, my shoes are strong, but how shall I get 

there ] 
•' Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square." 

I 've heard about some happy isle, Avhere every man is free, 
And none can lie in bonds for life for want of L. S. D. 

! that "s the land of Liberty ! but how shall I get there 7 
" Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square." 

1 've dreamt about some blessed spot, beneath the blessed sky, 
Where bread and justice never rise too dear for folks to buy. 
It 's cheaper than the Ward of Cheap, but how shall I get 

there 7 
" Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square." 

They say there is an ancient house, as pure as it is old, 
Where members always speak their minds, and votes are 

never sold. 
I 'm fond of all antiquities, but how shall I get there 7 
''' Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square." 

They say there is a royal court maintained in noble state, 
Where every able man, and good, is certain to be great ! 
I 'm very fond of seeing sights, but how shall I get there ? 
" Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square.'' 



436 EQUESTRIAN COUKTSHIP. 

They say there is a temple too, where Christians come to pray, 
But canting knaves and hypocrites and bigots keep away. 

! that "s the parish church for me ! but how shall I get there? 
" Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square." 

They say there is a garden fair, that 's haunted by the dove, 
Where love of gold doth ne'er eclipse the golden light of love ; 
The place must be a Paradise, but how shall I get there] 
" Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square.'* 

1 've heard there is a famous land for public spiHt known — • 
Whose patriots love its interests much better than their own. 
The Land of Promise sure it is ! but how shall I get there 7 
"Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square." 

I 've read about a fine estate, a mansion large and strong ; 
A view all over Kent and back, and going for a song. 
George Robins knows the very spot, but how^ shall I get there? 
"Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square." 

I 've heard there is a company all formal and enrolled, 
Will take your smallest silver coin and give it back in gold. 
Of course the office-door is mobbed, but how shall I get there 1 
" Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square." 

I ' ve heard about a pleasant land, where omelettes grow on trees, 
And roasted pigs run crying out, " Come eat me, if you 

please." 
My appetite is rather keen, but how shall I get there 1 
" Straight down the Crooked Lane, and all round the Square." 



EQUESTMAN COURTSHIP. 

It was a young maiden went forth to ride, 
And there was a wooer to pace by her side ; 
His horse was so little, and hers so high, 
He thought his angel was up in the sky. 



AN OPEN QUESTION. 437 

His love was great, though his wit was small ; 

He bade her ride easy — and that was all. 
The very horses began to neigh, — 
Because then- betters had naught to say. 

They rode by elm, and they rode by oak. 

They rode by a church-yard, and then he spoke : — 

" My pretty maiden, if you "11 agree 

You shall always ramble through life with me." 

The damsel answered him never a word, 

But kicked the gray mare, and away she spurred. 

The wooer still followed behind the jade. 

And enjoyed — like a wooer — the dust she made. 

They rode through moss, and they rode through moor, — 

The gallant behind and the lass before ; — 

At last they came to a miry place. 

And there the sad wooer gave up the chase. 

Quoth he, " If my nag were better to ride, 

I 'd follow her over the world so wide 

0, it is not my love that begins to fail. 

But I 've lost the last glimpse of the gray mare's tail ! " 



AN OPEN QUESTION. 

♦ Ts the king's highway that we are in, and in this way it is that thou 
hai3\ »«wt>t,-d the lions." — Bunyan. 

What ! shut the Gardens ! lock the latticed gate ! 

Refuse the shilling and the fellow's ticket ! 
And hang a wooden notice up to state, 

" On Sundays no admittance at this wicket ! " 
The Birds, the Beasts, and all the Reptile race, 

Denied to friends and visitors till Monday ! 
Now, really, this appears the common case 



138 AN OPEN QUESTION. 

Of putting too much Sabbath into Sunday — 
But what is jour opinion, Mrs Grundy 7 

The Gardens, — so unlike the ones we dub 
Of Tea, wherein the artisan carouses, — 

Mere shrubberies without one drop of shrub, — 

Wherefore should they be closed like public-houses ] 

No ale is vended at the wild Deer's Head, — 
No rum — nor gin — not even of a Monday — 

The Lion is not carved — or gilt — or red, 
And does not send out porter of a Sunday — 
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy 7 

The Bear denied ! the Leopard under locks ! 

As if his spots would give contagious fevers ! 
The Beaver close as hat within its box ; 

So different from other Sunday beavers ! 
The Birds invisible — the Gnaw- way Rats — 

The Seal hermetically sealed till Monday — 
The Monkey tribe — the Family of Cats, — 

We visit other families on Sunday — 

But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy 7 

What is the brute profanity that shocks 
The super-sensitively serious feeling 7 

The Kangaroo — is he not orthodox 

To bend his legs, the way he does, in kneeling I 

Was strict Sir Andrew, in his Sabbath coat, 
Struck all a-heap to see a Coati mundi 7 

Or did the Kentish Plumtree faint to note 
The Pelicans presenting bills on Sunday 7 — 
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy? 

What feature has repulsed the serious set 7 
What error in the bestial birth or breeding. 

To put their tender fancies on the fret 7 

One thing is plain — it is not in the feeding ! 



AN OPEN QUESTION. 439 

Some stiffish people think that smoking joints 
Are carnal sins 'twixt Saturday and Monday — 

But then the beasts are pious on these points, 
For they all eat cold dinners on a Sunday — 
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy 1 

What change comes o'er the spirit of the place, 
As if transmuted by some spell organic 7 

Turns fell Hyena of the Ghoulish race ? 

The Snake, pro tempore, the true Satanic ? 

Do Irish minds, — (whose theory allows 

That now and then Good Fri<lay falls on Monday) — 

Do Irish minds suppose that Indian Cows 

Are wicked Bulls of Bashan on a Sunday 7 — 
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy '^• 

There are some moody Fellov^s, not a few. 
Who, turned by Nature witii a- gloomy bias, 

llenounce black devils to adopt the blue, 

And think when they are dismal they are pious : 

Is 't possible that Pug's untimely fun 

Has sent the brutes to Coventry till Monday — 

Or perhaps some animal, no serious one, 
Was overheard in laughter on a Sunday — 
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy? 

What dire offence have serious Fellows found 

To raise their spleen against the Regent's spinney? 

Were charitable boxes handed round, 

And would not Guinea Pigs subscribe their guinea . 

Perchance, the Demoiselle refused to moult 

The feathers in her head — at least till Monday ; 

Or did the Elephant, unseemly, bolt 

A tract presented to be read on Sunday ? — 
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 



440 AN OPEN QUESTION. 

At whom did Leo struggle to get loose 1 

WliO mourns through Monkey tricks his damaged clotMngl 
Who has been hissed bj the Canadian Goose 'I 

On whom did Llama spit in utter loathing 7 
Some Smithfield Saint did jealous feelings tell 

To keep the Puma out of sight till Monday, 
Because he preyed extempore as well 

As certain wild Itinerants on Sunday — 

But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy 7 

To me it seems that in the oddest wa}' 

(Begging the pardon of each rigid Socius) 
Our would-be Keepers of the Sabbath-day 

Are like the Keepers of the brutes ferocious — 
As soon the Tiger might expect to stalk 

About the grounds from Saturday till Monday, 
As any harmless man to take a walk. 

If Saints could clap him in a cage on Sunday — 

But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy 7 

In spite of all hypocrisy can spin, 

As surely as I am a Christian scion, 
I cannot think it is a mortal sin — 

(Unless he 's loose) — to look upon a lion. 
I really think that one may go, perchance, 

To see a bear, as guiltless as on Monday — 
(That is, provided that he did not dance) — 

Bruin 's no worse than bakin' on a Sunday — 

But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy 7 

In spite of all the fanatic compiles, 

I cannot think the day a bit diviner, 
Because no children, with forestalling smiles, 

Throng, happy, to the gates of Eden Minor — 
It is not plain, to my poor faith at least. 

That what we christen " Natural " on Monday, 



AN OPEN QUESTION. Ml 

The wondrous history of Bird and Beast, 
Can be unnatural because it's Sunday — 
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy? 

Whereon is sinful flmtasy to work '? 

The Dove, the winsied Columbus of man's haven? 
The tender Love-Bird — or the filial Stork 7 

The punctual Crane — the providential Raven 7 
The Pelican whose bosom feeds her young 7 

Nay, must we cut from Saturday till Monday 
That feathered marvel with a human tono;ue, 

Because she does not preach upon a Sunday — 

But what is your opinion. Mrs. Grundy 7 

The busy Beaver — that sagacious beast ! 

The Sheep that owned an Oriental Shepherd — 
That Desert-ship, the Camel of the East, 

The liorned Rhinoceros — tlie spotted Leopard — 
The Creatures of the Great Creator's hand 

Are surely sights for better days than Monday — 
The Elephant, although he wears no band. 

Has he no sermon in his trunk for Sunday? — 

But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy 7 

What harm if men who burn the midnight-oil. 
Weary of frame, and worn and wan of feature, 

Seek once a week their spirits to assoil. 

And snatch a glimpse of " Animated Nature " 7 

Better it were if, in his best of suits, 

The artisan, who goes to work on Monday, 

Should spend a leisure-hour amongst the brutes. 
Than make a beast of his own self on Sunday — 
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy 7 

Why, zounds ! what raised so Protestant a fuss 
COmit the zounds ! for which I make apology) 



442 MORNING MEDITATIONS. 

But that the Papists, like some Fellows, thus 

Had somehow mixed up Dejis with their Theology \ 

Is Brahma's Bull — a Hindoo god at home — 
A Papal Bull to be tied up till Monday — 

Or Leo, like his namesake. Pope of Rome, 

That there is such a dread of them on Sunday — 
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 

Spirit of Kant ! have we not had enough 

To make Religion sad, and sour, and snubbish, 

But Saints Zoological must cant their stuff, 

As vessels cant their ballast — rattling rubbish ! 

Once let the sect, triumphant to their text, 
Shut Nero up from Saturday till Monday, 

And sure as fate they will deny us next 
To see the Dandelions on a Sunday — 
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy 7 



MORNING MEDITATIONS. 

Let Taylor preach, upon a morning breezy, 
How well to rise w^hile nights and larks are flying- 
For my part, getting up seems not so easy 
By half as lying. 

What if the lark does carol in the sky, 
Soaring beyond the sight to find him out — 
Wherefore am I to rise at such a fly ? 
I 'm not a trout. 

Talk not to me of bees and such-like hums, 
The smell of sweet herbs at the morning prime — 
Only lie long enough, and bed becomes 
A bed of time. 



MORNING MEDITATIONS. 4:43 

To me Dan Phoebus and his car are naught, 
His steeds that pa^y impatiently about, — 
Let them enjoy, say I, as horses ought, 
The first turn-out ! 

Right beautiful the dewy maids appear 
Besprinkled by the rosy-fingered girl ; 
What then, — if I prefer my pillow-beer 
To early pearl ? 

My stomach is not ruled by other men's, 
And, grumbling for a reason, quaintly begs 
Wherefore should master rise before the hens 
Have laid their eggs 1 

Why from a comfortable pillow start 
To see faint flushes in the east awaken l 
A 'fig, say I, for any streaky part. 
Excepting bacon. 

An early riser Mr. Gray has drawn, 
V/ho used to haste the dewy grass among, 
" To meet the sun upon the upland lawn," — 
Well — he died young. 

With charwomen such early hours agree. 
And sweeps that earn betimes their bit and sup ; 
But I 'm no climbing boy, and need not be 
All up — all up ! 

So here I lie, my morning calls deferring, 
Till something nearer to the stroke of noon ; — 
A man that 's fond precociously of stirring. 
Must be a spoon. 



i44 A BLACK JOB. 



A BLACK JOB. 



*' No doubt the pleasure is as great 
Of being cheated as to cheat." — Hudibras. 

The liistorj of human-kind to trace 

Since Eve — the first of dupes — our doom unriddled 
A certain portion of the human race 

Has certainly a taste for being diddled. 

Witness the famous Mississippi dreams ! 

A rage that time seems only to redouble — 
The Banks, Joint-Stocks, and all the flimsy schemes, 

For rolling in Pactolian streams, 
That cost our modern rogues so little trouble. 
No matter what, — to pasture cows on stubble, 

To twist sea-sand into a solid rope. 
To make French bricks and fancy bread of rubble, 
Or light with gas the whole celestial cope — 

Only propose to blow a bubble, 
And, Lord ! what hundreds will subscribe for soap 1 

Soap ! it reminds me of a little tale, 

Though not a pig's, the hawbuck's glory, 
When rustic games and merriment prevail — 

But here 's my story : 
Once on a time — no matter when — 
A knot of very charitable men 
Set up a Philanthropical Society, 
Professing on a certain plan 
To benefit the race of man, 
And in particular that dark variety. 
Which some suppose inferior — as in vermin, 

The sable is to ermine, 
As smut to flour, as coal to alabaster, 

As crows to swans, as soot to driven snow, 



A BLACK JOB. 445 

As blacking, or as ink to " milk below " 
Or yet, a better simile to show, 
As ragman's dolls to images in plaster ! 

However, as is usual in our city. 

They had a sort of managing Committee, 

A board of grave, responsible Directors — 
A Secretary, good at pen and ink — 
A Treasurer, of course, to keep the chink, 

And quite an army of Collectors ! 
Not merely male, but female duns. 

Young, old, and middle-aged — of all degrees — 
With many of those persevering ones, 

Who mite by mite would beg a cheese ! 
And what might be their aim '? 

To rescue Afric's sable sons from fetters — 
To save their bodies from the burning shame 

Of branding with hot letters — 
Their shoulders from the cowhide's bloody strokes, 

Their necks from iron yokes ? 
To end or mitigate the ills of slavery, 
The Planter's avarice, the Driver's knavery? 
To school the heathen negroes and enlighten 'em, 

To polish up and brighten 'em. 
And make them worthy of eternal bliss 7 
Why, no — the simple end and aim was this — 
Reading a well-known proverb much amiss — 
To wash and whiten 'em ! 

They looked so ugly in their sable hides ; 

So dark, so dingy, like a grubby lot 
Of sooty sweeps, or colliers, and besides, 
However the poor elves 
Might wash themselves, 



1:46 A BLACK JOB. 



Nobody knew if they were clean ot not — ^h 

On Nature's fairness they were quite a blot l " 



1 



Not to forget more serious complaints 
That even while they joined in pious hymn, 
So black they were and grim, 
In face and limb. 
They looked like Devils, though they sang like Saints ! 

The thing was undeniable ! 
They wanted Avashing ! not that slight ablution 
To which the skin of the white man is liable, 
Merely removing transient pollution — 

But good, hard, honest, energetic rubbing 
And scrubbing. 
Sousing each sooty frame from heels to head 

With stiff, strong saponaceous lather, 

And pails of water — hottish rather, 
But not so boilino- as to turn 'em red ! 



"O 



So spoke the philanthropic man 

Who laid, and hatched, and nursed the plan — 

And, ! to view its glorious consummation ! 
The brooms and mops. 
The tubs and slops. 

The baths and brushes in full operation ! 
To see each Crow, or Jim, or John, 
Go in a raven and come out a swan ! 

While fair as Cavendishes, Vanes, and Russels, 
Black Venus rises from the soapy surge, 
And all the little Niggerlings emerge 

As lily-white as mussels. 



Sweet was the vision — but, alas ! 

However in prospectus bright and sunny, 
To bring such visionary scenes to pass 

One thing was requisite, and that was — money J 



A BLACK JOB. 447 

Money, that pays the laundress and her bills, 
For socks, and collars, shirts, and frills. 
Cravats, and kerchiefs — money, without which 
The Negroes must remain as dark as pitch ; 

A thing to make all Christians sad and shivery, 
To think of millions of immortal souls • 
Dwelling in bodies black as coals, 

And living — so to speak — in Satan's livery ! 

Money — the root of evil — dross and stuff! 

But, ! how happy ought the rich to feel, 
Whose means enabled them to give enough 

To blanch an African from head to heel ! 
How blessed — yea, thrice blessed — to subscribe 

Enough to scour a tribe ! 
While he whose fortune was at best a brittle one. 
Although he gave but pence, how sweet to know 
He helped to bleach a Hottentot's great toe. 
Or little one ! 

Moved by this logic, or appalled. 

To persons of a certain turn so proper, 
The money came when called, 
In silver, gold, and copper, 

Presents from " friends to blacks," or foes to whites, 
'•Trifles," and " offerings," and " widow's mites," 
Plump legacies, and yearly benefactions. 
With other gifts 
And charitable lifts, 
Printed in lists and quarterly transactions. 
As thus — Elisha Brettel, 
An iron kettle. 
The Dowager Lady Scannel, 
A piece of flannel. 
Rebecca Pope, 
A. bar of soap. 



148 A BLACK JOB. 

The Misses Howels, 
Half-a-dozen towels. 
The Master Rush's 
Two scrubbing-brushes. 
Mr. T. Groom, 
A stable-broom, 
And Mrs. Grubb, 
A tub. 

Great were the sums collected ! 

And great results in consequence expected. 

But somehoAV. in the teeth of all endeavor. 

According to reports 

At yearly courts, 
The Blacks, confound them ! were as black as ever ! 

Yes ! spite of all the water soused aloft. 
Soap, plain and mottled, hard and soft, 
Soda, and pearlash, huckaback and sand. 
Brooms, brushes, palm of hand. 
And scourers in the office strong and clever, 

In spite of all the tubbing, rubbing, scrubbing, 

The routing and the grubbing, 
The Blacks, confound them ! were as black as ever I 

In fact, in his perennial speech, 
The Chairman owned the Niggers did not bleach, 
As he had hoped, 
From being washed and soaped, 
A circumstance he named with grief and pity ; 
But still he had the happiness to say, 
For self and the Committee, 
By persevering in the present way, 
And scrubbing at the Blacks from day to day, fM' 

Although he could not promise perfect white, 
From certain symptoms that had come to light, • 

He hoped in time to get them gray ! I 



A BLACK JOB. 149 

Lalled by this vague assurance, 

The friends and patrons of the sable tribe 

Continued to subscribe, 
And waited, waited on with much endurance — 
Many a frugal sister, thrifty daughter — 
Many a stinted widow, pinching mother — 
With income by the tax made somewhat shorter; 
Still paid implicitly her crown per quarter, 
Only to hear, as every year came round, 
That Mr. Treasurer had spent her pound : 
And as she loved her sable brother. 
That Mr. Treasurer must have another ? 

But, spite of pounds or guineas. 

Instead of giving any hint 

Of turning to a neutral tint. 
The plaguy Negroes and their piccaninnies 
Were still the color of the bird that caws — 

Only some very aged souls. 
Showing a little gray upon their polls. 
Like daws ! 

However, nothing dashed 

By such repeated failures, or abashed, 

The Court still met ; — the Chairman and Directors, 
The Secretary, good at pen and ink, 
The worthy Treasurer, who kept the chink, 
And all the cash Collectors ; 

With hundreds of that class, so kindly credulous^ 
Without whose help no charlatan alive 
Or Bubble Company could hope to thrive, 

Or busy Chevalier, however sedulous — 

Those good and easy innocents, in fact. 
Who, willingly receiving chaff for corn. 

As pointed out by Butler's tact, 

29 



450 A BLACK JOB. 

Still find a secret pleasure in the act 
Of being plucked and shorn ! 

However, in long hundreds there thej were, 
Thronging the hot. and close, and dusty court, 
To hear once more addresses from the Chair, 

And regular Report. 
Alas ! concluding in the usual strain. 

That what with everlasting wear and tear^ 

The scrubbing-brushes had n't got a hair — 
The brooms — mere stumps — would never serve again ■— 
The soap was gone, the flannels all in shreds. 

The towels worn to threads, 
The tubs and pails too shattered to be mended — 

And what was added with a deal of pain, 

But as accounts correctly would explain. 
Though thi-ty thousand pounds had been expended — 

The Blackamoors had still been washed in vain ! 

' ' In fact, the l!^egroes were as black as ink, 

Yet, still as thv" Committee dared to think, 

And hoped the ^proposition was not rash, 

A rather free expenditure of cash — " 

But ere the prosp.^ct could be made more sunny — 

Up jumped a lit.le, lemon-colored man, 

And with an eag^ r stammer, thus began. 
In angry earnest, though it sounded funny : 
' ' What ! More substriptions ! No — no — no, — not I ' 
You have had time — time — time enough to try ! 
They won't come white! then why — why — why — why 
— why. 

More money?" 

'• Why ! " said the Chairman, with an accent bland, 

And gentle waving of his dexter hand, 

*' Why must we have more dross j aiid dirt, and dufijt, 



ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 451 

More filthy lucre, in a word more gold — 

The why. sir, very easily is told, 
Because Humanity declares we must ! 
We 've scrubbed the Negroes till we 've nearly killed 'em. 

And, finding that we cannot wash them white, 

But still their nigritude offends the sio;ht, 
JVe mvMu to gild 'em / " 



ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 

** Close, close your eyes with holy dread, 
And weave a circle round him thrice ; 
For he on honey-dew hath fed, 
And drunk the milk of Paradise ! " — Colerii»€1E. 

" It 's very hard them kind of men 
Won't let a body be." — Old Ballad. 

A WANDERER, Wilson, from my native land, 
Remote, Rae, from godliness and thee. 
Where rolls between us the eternal sea, 
Besides some furlongs of a foreign sand, — 
Beyond the broadest Scotch of London Wall ; 
Beyond the loudest Saint that has a call ; 
Across the wavy waste between us stretched, 
A friendly missive warns me of a stricture, 
Wherein my likeness you have darkly etched, 
And though I have not seen the shadow sketched, 
Thus I remark prophetic on the picture. 

I guess the features : — in a line to paint 

Their moral ugliness, I 'm not a saint. 

Not one of those self-constituted saints, 

Quacks — not physicians — in the cure of souls, 

Censors who sniff out moral taints, 

And call the devil over his own coals — 

Those pseudo Pi ivy Councillors of God, 

Who write down judgments with a pen hard=nibbod ; 



452 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 

Ushers of Beelzebub's Black Rod, 
Commending sinners not to ice thick-ribbed, 
But endless flames, to scorch them like flax, — ■ 
Yet sure of heaven themselves, as if they 'd cubbed 
The impression of St. Peter's keys in wax ! 

Of such a character no single trace 

Exists, I know, in my fictitious face ; 

There wants a certain cast about the eye ; 

A certain lifting of the nose's tip ; 

A certain curhng of the nether lip, 

In scorn of all that is, beneath the sky ; 

In brief, it is an aspect deleterious, 

A face decidedly not serious, 

A face profane, that would not do at all 

To make a face at Exeter Hall, — 

That Hall where bigots rant, and cant, and pray. 

And laud each other face to face, 

Till every farthing-candle ray 

Conceives itself a great gas-light of grace ! 

Well ! — be the graceless lineaments confest ! 
I do enjoy this bounteous beauteous earth ; 

And dote upon a jest 
'' Within the limits of becoming mirth ; " — 
No solemn sanctimonious face I pull, 
Nor think I 'm pious when I 'm only bilious — 
Nor study in my sanctum su})ercilious 
To frame a Sabbath Bill or forge a Bull. 
I pray for grace — repent each sinful act — 
Peruse, but underneath the rose, my Bible ; 
And love my neighbor, far too well, in fact, 
To call and twit him with a godly tract 
That 's turned by application to a libel. 
My heart ferments not with the bigot's leaven, 
All creeds I view with toleration thorough. 



ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 453 

AnJ have a horror of ref»;ardin2; heaven 
As anybody's rotten borough. 

What else? Nc part I take in party fray, 

With tropes from.Billingsgate's slang-whanging Tartars, 

I fear no Pope — and let great Ernest play 

At Fox and Goose Avith Fox's Martyrs ! 

I own I laugh at over-righteous men, 

I ow^n I shake my sides at ranters, 

And treat sham Abr'am saints with wicked banters, 

I even own, that there are times — but then 

It 's when I 've got my wine — I say d canters ! 

I 've no ambition to enact the spy 

On fellows-souls, a spiritual Pry — 

'T is said that people ought to guard their noses 

Who thrust them into matters none of theirs : 

And, though no delicacy discomposes 

Your saint, yet I consider faith and prayers 

Amongst the privatest of men's affairs. 

I do not hash the Gospel in my books, 
And thus upon the public mind intrude it, 
As if I thought, like Otaheitan cooks, 
No food was fit to cat till I had chewed it. 

On Bible stilts I don't affect to stalk; 

Nor lard with Scripture my familiar talk, — 

For man may pious texts repeat. 
And yet religion have no inward seat ; 
'Tis not so plain as the old Hill of Howth, 
A man has got his belly full of meat 
Because he talks with victuals in his mouth ! 

Mere verbiage, — it is not worth a carrot • 
Why Socrates or Plato — wdiere's the odds? — 



454 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 

Once taught a Jay to supplicate the gods, 
And made a Polly- theist of a Parrot ! 

A mere professor, spite of all his cant, is 
Not a whit better than a Mantis, — 
An insect, of what clime I can't determine. 
That lifts its paws most parson-like, and thence, 
By simple savages — through sheer pretence — 
Is reckoned quite a saint amongst the vermin. 
But where 's the reverence, or where the ?ious^ 
To ride on one's religion through the lobby, 

Whether as stalking-horse or hobby. 
To show its pious paces to " the house." 

I honestly confess that I would hinder 
The Scottish member's legislative rigs. 

That spiritual Pindar, 
Who looks on erring souls as straying pigs. 
That must be lashed by law, wherever found, 
And driven to church as to the parish pound. 
I do confess, without reserve or wheedle, 
I view that grovelling idea as one 
Worthy some parish clerk's ambitious son, 
A charity-boy who longs to be a beadle. 
On such a vital topic sure 'tis odd 
IIow much a man can differ from his neighbor ; 
One wishes worship freely given to God, 
Another wants to make it statute-labor — 
The broad distinction in a line to draw, 
As means to lead us to the skies above, 
You sav — Sir Andrew and his love of law. 
And T — the Saviour with his law of love. 

Spontaneously to God should tend the soul, 
Like the magnetic needle to the Pole*. 



ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 455 

But what were that intrinsic virtue worth, 

Suppose some fellow, Avith more zeal than knowledge, 

Fresh from St. Andrew's college. 
Should nail the conscious needle to the north *? 
I do confess that I abhor and shrink 
From schemes, with a religious willy-nilly^ 
That frown upon St. Giles's sins, but blinl 
The peccadilloes of all Piccadilly — 
My soul revolts at such bare hypocrisy, 
And will not, dare not, fancy in accord 
The Lord of Hosts with an exclasive lore 
Of this world's aristocracy. 
It will not own a notion so uidlioly, 
As thinking that the rich by easy trips 
May go to heaven, wheref;,s the poor and lowly 
Must work their passage, as they do in ships. 

One place there is — beneath the burial -sod, 
Where all mankind are equalized by death ; 
Another place there is — the Fane of God, 
Where all are equal who draw living breath ; — 
Juggle who will elsewhere with his own soul, 
Playing the Judas with a temporal dole — 
He who can come beneath that awful cope, 
In the dread presence of a Maker just. 
Who metes to every pinch of human dust 
One even measure of immortal hope — 
He who can stand within that holy door, 
With soul unbowed by that pure spirit-level, 
And frame unequal laws for rich and poor, — 
Might sit for Hell, and represent the Devil ! 

Such are thi^ solemn sentiments. Rae, 

In your last journey-work, perchance, you ravage, 

Seeming, but in more courtly terms, to say 

I 'm but a heedless, creedless godless, savage ; 



156 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 

A very Guy, deserving fire and fagots, — 

A scoffer, always on the grin, 
j^ lid sadly given to the mortal sin 
Of liking Mawworms less than merry maggots ! 

The humble records of my life to search, 

1 have not herded with mere pagan beasts ; 

But sometimes I have " sat at good men's feasts," 

And I have been '• Avhere bells have knolled to church/ 

Dear bells ! how sweet the sound of village bells 

When on the undulating air they swim ! 

Now loud as welcomes ! faint, now, as farewells ! 

And trembling all about the breezy dells. 

As fluttered by the wings of Cherubim. 

Meanwhile the bees are chanting a low hymn ; 

And lost to sight the ecstatic lark above 

Sings, like a soul beatified, of love. 

With, now and then, the coo of the wild pigeon : — 

pagans, heathens, infidels, and doubters ! 

If such sweet sounds can't woo you to religion, 

Will the harsh voices of church cads and touters ? 

A man may cry Church ! Church ! at every word, 
With no more piety than other people — 
A daw 's not reckoned a religious bird 
Because it keeps a-cawing from a steeple ; 
The Temple is a good, a holy place, 
But quacking only gives it an ill savor ; 
While saintly mountebanks the porch disgrace, 
A.nd brino; relifxion's self into disfavor ! 

Behold yon servitor of God and Mammon, 
Who, binding up his Bible with his ledger. 

Blends Gospel texts with trading gammon, 
A black-leg saint, a spiritual hedger, 



ODE TO HAE WILSON, ESQUIRE 457 

Who backs his rigid Sabbath, so to speak, 
Against the wicked remnant of the week, 
A savino; bet aa'ainst his sinful bias — 
" Rogue that I am," he whispers to himself, 
"I lie — I cheat — do anything for pelf, 
But who on earth can say I am not pious ! " 

In proof how over-righteousness reacts, 

Accept an anecdote well based on facts ; 

On Sunday morning — (at the day don't fret) — 

In riding with a friend to Ponder' s End 

Outside the stage, w^e happened to commend 

A certain mansion that we saw^ To Let. 

"Ay," cried our coachman, wdth our talk to grapple, 

"You 're right ! no house along the road comes nigh it. 

'T was built by the same man as built yon chapel, 
And master wanted once to buy it, — 

But t' other driv the bargain much too hard, — 
He axed sure-ly a sum prodigious ! 

But being so particular religious, 

Why, that, you see, put master on his guard ! " 
Church is " a little heaven below, 
I have been there and still would go," — 

Yet I am none of those who think it odd 

A man can pray unbidden from the cassock, 
And, passing by the customary hassock. 

Kneel down remote upon the simple sod, 

And sue in forrna pauperis to God, 

As for the rest, — intolerant to none, 
Whatever shaj^e the pious rite may bear, 
Even the poor pagan's homage to the sun 
I would not harshly scorn, lest even there 
I spurned some elements of Christian pi*ajer 



458 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 

An aim, though erring, at a "world ajont" — 
Acknowledgment of good — of man's futility, 
A sense of need, and weakness, and indeed 
That very thing so many Christians want — 

Humility. 

Such, unto Papists, Jews or Turbaned Turks, 
Such is my spirit — (I don't mean my wraith !) 
Such, may it please you, is my humble faith ; 
I know, full well, you do not like my works ! 

I have not sought, 't is true, the Holy Land, 
As full of texts as Cuddie Hedrigg's mother, 

The Bible in one hand, 
And my own commonplace-book in the other — 
But you have been to Palestine — alas ! 
Some minds improve by travel — others, rather, 

Resemble copper wire or brass. 
Which gets the narrower by going farther ! 

Worthless are all such pilgrimages — very ! 
If Palmers at the Holy Tomb contrive 
The human heats and rancor to revive 
That at the Sepulchre they ought to bury. 
A sorry sight it is to rest the eye on, 
To see a Christian creature graze at Sion, 
Then homeward, of the saintly pasture full, 
Rush bellowing, and breathing fire and smoke. 
At crippled Papistry to butt and poke. 
Exactly as a skittish Scottish bull 
Haunts an old woman in a scarlet cloak. 

Why leave a serious, moral, pious home, 
Scotland, renoAvned for sanctity of old. 
Far distant Catholics to rate and scold 
For — doing as the Romans do at Rome I 



ODE TO EAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 45b 

W^ith such a bristling spirit y^herefore quit 
The Land of Cakes for any land of wafers, 
About the graceless images to flit, 
And buzz and chafe importunate as chafers, 
Longing to carve the carvers to Scotch collopsl — 
People who hold such absolute opinions 
Should stay at home in Protestant dominions, 
Not travel like male Mrs. Trollopes. 

Gifted with noble tendency to climb, 
Yet weak at the same time. 
Faith is a kind of parasitic plant, 
That giasps the nearest stem with tendril rings ; 
And as the climate and the soil may grant, 
So is the sort of tree to which it clings. 
Consider, then, before, like Hurlothrumbo, 
You aim your club at any creed on earth. 
That, by the simple accident of birth. 
You mio;ht have been Hio;h Priest to Mumbo Jumbo 

For me — through heathen ignorance perchance, 

Not having knelt in Palestine, — I feel 

None of that grifiinish excess of zeal. 

Some travellers would blaze with here in France. 

Dolls I can see in Virgin-like array. 

Nor for a scuffle with the idols hanker 

Like crazy Quixotte at the puppet's play. 

If their " offence be rank." should mine be rancor 7 

Mild, light, and by degrees, should be the plan 
To cure the dark and erring mind ; 
But who would rush at a benighted man, 
And give him two black eyes for being blind ? 

Suppose the tender but luxuriant hop 
Around a cankered stem should twine. 



160 ODE TC RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 

What Kentish boor would tear away the prop 
So roughly as to wound, nay, kill the bine 7 

The images, 't is true, are strangely dressed, 
With gauds and toys extremely out of season ; 
The carving nothing of the very best. 
The whole repugnant to the eye of Reason, 
Shocking to Taste, and to Fine Arts a treason — 
Yet ne'er o'erlook in bigotry of sect 
One truly Catholic^ one common form, 

At which unchecked 
All Christian hearts may kindle or keep warm. 

Say, was it to my spirit's gain or loss, 
One bright and balmy morning, as I went 
From Liege's lovely environs to Ghent, 
, If hard by the wayside I found a cross. 
That made me breathe a prayer upon the spot — 
While Nature of herself, as if to trace 
The emblem's use, had trailed around its base 
The blue significant Forget-Me-Not ? 
Methought, the claims of Charity to urge 
ISIore forcibly along with Faith and Hope, 
The pious choice had pitched upon the verge 

Of a delicious slope, 
Giving the eye much variegated scope ! — 
'' Look round," it whispered, " on that prospect rare 
Those vales so verdant, and those hills so blue ; 
Enjoy the sunny world, so fresh, and fair. 
But " — (how the simple legend pierced me through 

" PrIEZ pour LES MALHEftREUX." 

With sweet kind natures, as in honeyed cells, 

Religion lives, and feels herself at home ; 

But only on a formal visit dwells 

Where wasps instead of bees have formed the comb. 



ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 461 

Shun pride, Rae ! — whatever sort beside 
You take in lieu, shun spiritual pride ! 
A pride there is of rank — a pride of birth, 
A pride of learning, and a pride of purse, 
A London pride — in short, there be on earth 
A host of prides, some better and some worse ; 
But of al] prides, since Lucifer's attaint, 
The proudest swells a self-elected Saint. 

To picture that cold pride so harsh and hard, 
Fancy a peacock in a poultrj-jard. 
Behold him in conceited circles sail. 
Strutting and dancing, and now planted stiiF, 
In all his pomp of pageantry, as if 
He felt ^'- the eyes of Europe " on his tail ! 
As for the humble breed retained by man, 
He scorns the whole domestic clan — 

He bows, he bridles, 

He wheels, he sidles. 
As last, with stately dodgings in a corner, 
He pens a simple russet hen, to scorn her 
Full in the blaze of his resplendent fan ! 

" Look here," he cries, (to give him words,) 

" Thou feathered clay, — thou scum of birds ! " 
Flirting the rustling plumage in her eyes, — 

''Look here, thou vile predestined sinner. 

Doomed to be roasted for a dinner, 
Behold these lovely variegated dyes ! 
These are the rainbow colors of the skies, 
That heaven has shed upon me co/i amore — 
A Bird of Paradise ? — a pretty story ! 
/ am that Saintly Fowl, thou paltry chick ! 

Look at my crown of glory ! 
Thou dingy, dirty, dabbled, draggled jill I " 



i62 ODE TO EAB WILSOK, ESQljIKE. 

And oif goes Partlctt, wriggling from a kick, 
With bleeding scalp laid open by his bill ! 

That little simile exactly paints 
How sinners are despised by saints. 
By saints ! — the Hypocrites that ope heaven's door 
Obsequious to the sinful man of riches — 
But put the wicked, naked, bare-legged poor, 
In parish stocks, instead of breeches. 

The Saints ? — the Bigots that in public spout, 
Spread phosphorus of zeal on scraps of fustian, 
And go like walking " Lucifers " about 
Mere living bundles of combustion. 

The Saints ! — the aping Fanatics that talk 
All cant and rant and rhapsodies high flown — 

That bid you balk 

A Sunday walk. 
And shun God's work as you should shun your own. 

The Saints ! — the Formalists, the extra pious, 
Who think the mortal husk can save the soul, 
By trundling, with a mere mechanic bias, 
To church, just like a lignum-vitae bowl ! 

The Saints ! — the Pharisees, whose beadle stands 

Beside a stern coercive kirk, 

A piece of human mason-work, 
Calling all sermons contrabands. 
In that great Temple that 's not made with hands I 

Thrice blessed, rather, is the man with whom 
The gracious prodigality of nature, 
The balm, the bliss, the beauty, and the bloom, 
The bounteous providence in every feature, 
Recall the good Creator to his creature, 
Making all earth a fane, all heaven its dome I 



ODE TO RAil WILSON, ESQUIRE. 463 

To his tuned spirit the wild heather-bells 

Ring Sabbath knells ; 
The jubilate of the soaring lark 

Is chant of clerk ; 
For Choir, the thrush and the gregarious linnet ; 
The sod "s a cushion for his pious want ; 
And, consecrated by the heaven within it, 
The sky-blue pool, a font. 
Each cloud-capped mountain is a holy altar ; 

An organ breathes in every grove ; 

And the full heart 's a Psalter, 
Rich in deep hymns of gratitude and love ! 

Sufficiently by stern necessitarians 

Poor Nature, with her face begrimed by dust, 

Is smoked, coked, smoked, and almost choked ; but must 

Religion have its own Utilitarians, 

Labelled with evangelical phylacteries. 

To make the road to heaven a railway trust, 

xlnd churches — that's the naked fact — mere factories] 

! simply open wide the temple door. 
And let the solemn, swelling organ greet. 

With Voluntaries meet. 
The vilUng advent of the rich and poor ! 
And while to God the loud Hosannas soar. 
With rich vibrations from the vocal throng — 
From quiet shades that to the woods belong, 

And brooks with music of their own, 
Voices may come to swell the choral song 
With notes of praise they learned in musings lone 

How strange it is, while on all vital questions, 
That occupy the House and public mind, 
We always meet with some humane suggestions 
Of gentle measures of a healing kind, 



461 ODE TO EAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 

Instead of harsh severity and vigor, 
The saint alone his preference retains 
Eor bills of penalties and pains. 
And marks his narrow code with legal rigor ! 
Why shun, as worthless of affiliation, 
What men of all political persuasion 
Extol — and even use upon occasion — 
That Christian principle, conciliation 1 
But possibly the men who make such fuss 
With Sunday pippins and old Trots infirm. 
Attach some other meaning to the term, 
As thus : 

One market morning, in my usual rambles, 
Passing along Whitechapel's ancient shambles, 
Where meat w^as hung in many a joint and quarter 
I had to halt a while, like other folks, 
To let a killino; butcher coax 

CD 

A score of lambs and flitted sheep to slaughter. 
A sturdy man he looked to fell an ox, 
Bull-fronted, ruddy, with a formal streak 
Of well-greased hair down either cheek. 
As if he dee-dash — dee'd some other flocks 
Besides those woollv-headed stubborn blocks 
That stood before him, in vexatious huddle — 
Poor little lambs, with bleating wethers grouped, 
While, now and then, a thirsty creature stooped 
And meekly snufted, but did not taste the puddle. 

Fierce barked the dog, and many a blow was dealt, 
. That loin, and chump, and scrag and saddle felt, 
Yet still, that fatal step they all declined it, — 
Ani shunned the tainted door as if they smelt 
Onions, mint-sauce, and lemon-juice behind it. 



ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 465 

At last there came a. pause of brutal force ; 
The cur -was silent, for his ja^YS were full 
Of tangled locks of tarry wool ; 
The man had whooped and bellowed till dead hoarse, 
The time was ripe for mild expostulation, 
And thus it stannnered from a stander-by — 
'' Zounds ! — my good fellow, — it quite makes me - - why 
It really — my dear fellow — do just try 

Conciliation ! " 

StrinHnf!; his nerves like flint, 
The sturdy butcher seized upon the hint, — 
At least he seized upon the foremost wether, — 
And hugged and lugged and tugged him neck and crop 
Just nolens voJens through the open shop — 
If tails come oft' he didn't care a feather, — 
Then walking to the door, and smiling grim, 
He rubbed his forehead and his sleeve together — • 

" There ! — I 've co/zciliated him ! " 

Again — good-humoredly to end our quarrel — 
(Good humor should prevail !) 
I '11 fit you with a tale 
Whereto is tied a moral. 

Once on a time a certain English lass 

Was seized with symptoms of such deep decline, 

Cough, hectic flushes, every evil sign, 

That, as their wont is at such desperate pass. 

The doctors gave her over — to an ass. 

Accordingly, the grisly Shade to bilk, 
Each morn the patient quafled a frothy bowl 

Of assinine new milk. 
Robbing a shaggy suckling of a foal 
W^hich got proportionably spare and skinny — 

30 



i66 A TABLE OF ERKATA. 

Meanwhile the neighbors cried " Poor Marj Ann I 
She can't get over it ! she never can ! " 
When^ lo ! to prove each prophet was a ninny, 
The one that died was the poor wet-nurse Jenny. 

To ao-trravate the case, 
There were but two grown donkeys in the plaee ; 
And, most unluckily for Eve's sick daughter, 
The other long-eared creature was a male, 
Who never in his life had given a pail 

Of milk, or even chalk and water. 
No matter : at the usual hour of eisht 
Down trots a donkey to the wicket-gate, 
With Mister Simon Gubbins on his back, — 
"Your sarvant, Miss, — a worry spring-like day, — 
Bad time for hasses, though ! good lack ! good lack ! 
Jenny be dead, Miss, — but I 'ze brought ye Jack, — 
He does n't give no milk — but he can bray." 

So runs the story, 

And, in vain self-glory. 
Some Saints would sneer at Gubbins for his blindness, 
^ But what the better are their pious saws 
To ailing souls, than dry hee-haws. 
Without the milk of human kindness ? 



A TABLE OF ERRATA. 

(Hostess loquitur.) 

Well ! thanks be to Heaven, 
The summons is given ; 
It 's only gone seven, 

And should have been six ; 
There 's fine overdoing 
In roasting and stewing, 



A TABLE OF ERRATA. 467 

And victuals past chewing 
To rags and to sticks ! 

How dreadfully chilly ! 
I shake, willy-nilly ; 
That John is so silly. 

And never will learn 
This plate is a cold one. 
That cloth is an old one, — 
I wish they had told one 

The lamp would n't burn, 

Now then for some blunder 
For nerves to sink under : 
I never shall wonder, 

Whatever goes ill. 
That fish is a riddle ! 
It 's broke in the middle. 
A Turbot ! a fiddle I 

It 's only a Brill ! 

It 's quite over-boiled too, 
The butter is oiled too. 
The soup is all spoiled too, 

It 's nothing but slop. 
The smelts looking flabby, 
The soles are as dabby, 
It all is so shabby 

That Cook shall not stop ! 

As sure as the morning, 
She gets a month's warning, 
My orders for scorning — 
There 's nothing to eat! 
I hear such a rushmg, 
I feel such a flushing, 



468 A TABLE OF ERRATA. 

I know I am blushing 
As red as a beet ! 

Friends flatter and flatter. 
t wish they would chatter ; 
What can be the matter 

That nothing comes next 7 
How very unpleasant ! 
Lord ! there is the pheasant I 
Not wanted at present, 

1 'm born to be vext ! 

The pudding brought on too, 
And aimnig at ton too ! 
And where is that John too. 

The plague that he is ? 
He 's off" on some ramble : 
And there is jNIiss Campbell, 
Enjoying the scramble, 

Detestable Quiz ' 

The veal they all eye it, 
But no one will try it, 
An Ogre would shy it 

So ruddy as that ! 
And as for the mutton, 
The cold dish it's put on 
Converts to a button 

Each drop of the fat. 

The beef without nmstard I 
My fate "s to be flustered, 
And there comes the custard 

To eat witli the hare ! 
Such flesh, fowl, and fishing, 
Such waiting and dishing, 



A TABLE OF ERKA'iA. 469 

1 cannot help wishing 
A woman might swear ! 

dear ! did I ever — 
But no. I did never — 
Well, come, that is clever, 

To send up the brawn ! 
That cook, I could scold her, 
Gets worse as she 's older ; 

1 wonder who told her 

That woodcocks are drawn ! 

It 's really audacious ! 
I cannot look gracious ; 
Lord help the voracious 

That came for a cram ! 
There 's Alderman Fuller 
Gets duller and duller. 
Those fowls, by the color, 

Were boiled with the ham ! 

Well, where is the curry 7 

I 'm all in a flurry. 

No, Cook 's in no hurry — 

A stoppage again ! 
And John makes it wider, 
A pretty provider ! 
By bringing up cider 

Instead of champagne ? 

My troubles come faster ! 
There 's my lord and master 
Detects each disaster, 

And hardly can sit : 
He cannot help seeing, 



470 A TABLE OF ERRATA. 

All things disagreeing ; 
If he begins d — ing 
I'm off in a fit. 

This cooking ? — it's messing ! 
The spinacli wants pressing, 
And salads in dressing 

Are best with good eggs. 
And John — yes, already — 
Has had something heady, 
That makes him unsteady 

In keeping his legs. 

How shall I get through it ? 
I never can do it, 
I'm quite looking to it, 

To sink by and by. 
! would I were dead now, 
Or up in my bed now. 
To cover my head now, 

And have a good cry. 



A ROW AT THE OXFORD ARMS. 
*• Glorious Apollo from on high behold us."— Old Sonq. 

As latterly I chanced to pass 
A Public House from which, alas ! 
The Arms of Oxford dangle ! 
My ear was startled by a din, 
That made me tiemble in my skin, 
A dreadful hubbub from within, 
Of voices in a wrangle — 
Voices loud and voices high. 
With now and then a party-cry. 
Such as used in times gone by 



A ROW AT THE OXFORD ARMS. 471 

To scare the British border : 

When foes from North and South of Tweed — 

Neighbors — iind of Clnistiau creed — 

Met in hate to fight and bleed, 

Upsetting Social Order. 

Surprised, I turned me to the crowd, 

Attracted by that tumult loud, 

And asked a gazer, beetle-browed, 

The cause of such disquiet 

When, lo ! the solemn-looking man 

First shook his liead on Burleigh's plan, 

And then, with fluent tongue, began 

His version of the riot : 
A row ! — Nvhy, yes, — a pretty row, you might hear from 

this to Garmany, 
And what is worse, it's all got up among the Sons of Har- 
mony, 
The more's the shame for them as used to be in time and tune, 
And all unite in chorus like the singing-birds in June ! 
Ah ! many a pleasant cliant I've heard in passing here along. 
When Swiveller was President a-knocking down a song; 
But Dick's resigned tiie post, you see, and all them shouts 

and hollers 
Is 'cause two other candidates, some sort of larned scholars. 
Are squabbling to be Chairman of the Glorious Apollers I 
Lord knows their names, I'm sure I don't, no more than 

any jokel. 
But I never heard of either as connected with the vocal ; 
Nay, some do say, although of course the pubhc rumor varies, 
They've no morew^arble in them than a pair of hen canaries ; 
Though that might pass if they were dabs at t' other sort of 

thing, 
For a man may make a song, you know, although he cannot 
sing; 



472 A ROW AT THE OXFORD ARMS. 

But, lork ! it 's many folks" belief they 're only good at proving. 
For Catnach sweai-s he never saw a verse of their composing . 
And when a piece of poetry lias stood its public trials, 
If pop'lar, it gets printed off at once in Seven Dials, 
And then about all sorts of streets, by every little monkey, 
It 's chanted like the " Dog's Meat Man,'' or ^' If I 'lad a 

Donkey." 
Whereas, as Mr. Catnach says, and not a bad judge neither, 
No ballad worth a ha'penny has ever come from either, 
And him as writ '-Jim Crow," he says, and got such lots 

of dollars. 
Would make a better Chairman for the Glorious Apollers. 

Howsomever that 's the meaning of the squabble that arouses 
This neighborhood, and quite disturbs all decent Heads of 

Houses, 
Who want to have their dinners and their parties, as is reason, 
In Christian peace and charity according to the season. 
But from Number Thirty-Nine, since this eL'Ctioneering job, 
Ay, as far as Number Ninety, there's an e»^erlasting mob; 
Till the thing is quite a nuisance, for no creo.ture passes by, 
But he gets a card, a pamphlet, or a summut in his eye ; 
And a pretty noise there is ! — what witli canvassers and 

spoiiters. 
For in coarse each side is furnished ^vith its backers and its 

touters ; 
And surely among the Clergy to such pitches it is carried, 
You can hardly find a Parson to get buried or get married ; 
Or supposing any accident that suddenly alarms. 
If you 're dying for a surgeon, you must fetch him from tK.% 

" Arms : " 
While the Schoolmasters and Tooters are neglecting of their 

scholars. 
To write al^out a Chairman for the Glorious AppolJ^rs- 



A ROW AT THE OXFORD ARMS. 473 

Well, that, sir, is the racket ; and the more the sin and shame 
Of them that help to stir it up, and propagate the same ; 
Instead of vocal ditties, and the social flowing cup, — 
But they '11 be the House's ruin, or the shutting of it up, — 
With their riots and their hubbubs, like a garden full of bears. 
While they've damaged many articles. and broken lots of 

squares, 
And kept their noble Club Room in a perfect dust and 

smother, 
By throwing Morning Heralds^ Times, and Standards 

at each other ; 
Not to name the ugly language Gemmen ought n't to repeat, 
And the names they call each other — for I've heard 'em 

in the street — 
Such as Traitors, Guys, and Judases, and Vipers, and what 

not, 
For Pasley and his divers an't so blowing-up a lot. 
And then such awful swearing ! — for there 's one of them 

that cusses 
Enough to shock the cads that hang on opposition 'busses ; 
For he cusses every member that 's agin him at the poll. 
As I wouldn't cuss a donkey, though it hasn't got a soul; 
And he cusses all their families, Jack, Harry. Bob, or Jim, 
To the babby in the cradle, if they don't agree with him. 
Whereby, although as yet they have not took to use their fives, 
Or, according as the flishion is, to sticking with their knives, 
I 'm bound there '11 be some milling yet, and shakings by 

the collars, 
Af.)re they choose a Chairman for the Glorious Apollers ! 

To be sure, it is a pity to be blowing such a squall, 
Instead of clouds, and every man his song, and then his call- 
And as if there w^as n't Whirrs enouo-h and Tories to fall out, 
Besides politics in plenty for our splits to be about — 



474 A ROW AT THE OXFORD ARMS. 

Wliy, a corn-field is sufficient, sir^ as anybody knows, 
For to furnisli them in plenty who are fond of picking crows — 
jNot to name the Maynooth Catholics, and other Irish stews, 
To agitate society and loosen all its screws ; 
And which all may be agreeable and proj.er to their spheres, — 
But it 's not the thing for musicals to set us by the ears. 
And as to College larning. my opinion for to broach, 
And I 'vc had it from my cousin, and he driv a college coach. 
And so knows the University, and all as there belongs, 
And he says that Oxford 's famouser for sausages than songs, 
And seldom turns a poet out like Hudson that can chant, 
As well as make such ditties as the Free and Easies want, 
Or other Tavern Melodists I can't just call to mind — 
But it 's not the classic system for to propagate the kind. 
Whereby it so may happen as that neither of them Scholars 
May be the proper Chairman for the Glorious Apollers. 

For my part in the matter, if so be I had a voice. 
It "s the best among the vocalists I 'd honor w^ith the choice; 
Or a poet as could furnish a new Ballad to the bunch ; 
Or, at any rate, the surest hand at mixing of the punch ; 
'Cause why, the members meet for that and other tuneful 

frolics — 
And not to say, like Muffincaps, their Catichiz and CoUec's. 
But you see them there Initerants that preach so long and loud, 
And always take advantage like the prigs of any crowd, 
ilave brought their jangling voices, and as far as they can 

compass, 
I Li ve turned a tavern shindy to a seriouser rumpus, 
And him as knows most hymns — although I can't see how 

it follers — 
They want to be the Chairman of the Glorious Appollers .' 

Well, that's the row — and who can guess the upshot after all 7 
Wlijther Harmony will ever make the •• Arms '' her House 
of call. 



ETCHING MORALIZED. 475 

Or whether this here mobbing — as some longish heads fore- 
tell it, 
Will grow to such a riot that the Oxford Blues must quell it 
Howsomever, for the present, there ^s no sign of any peace 
For the hubbub keeps a growing, and defies the New Police ; 
But if I was in the Vestrj, and a leading sort of Man, 
Or a Member of the Vocals, to get backers for mj plan, 
Why, I 'd settle all the squabble in the twinkle of a needle, 
For ] 'd have another candidate — and that 's the Parish 

Beadle, 
Who makes such lots of Poetry, himself, or else by proxy, 
And no one never has no doubts about his orthodoxy ; 
Whereby — if folks was wise — instead of either of them 

Scholars, 
And straining their own lungs along of contradictious hollers, 
They ^11 lend their ears to reason, and take my advice as follers. 
Namely — Bumble for the Chairman of the Glorious ApoUers ' 



ETCHING MORALIZED. 

TO A NOBLE LADY. 
" To point a moral." — Johnsox. 

Fairest Lady and Noble, for once on a time. 
Condescend to accept, in the humblest of rhyme, 

And a st/lo more of Gay than of Milton, 
A few opp(.rtune verses designed to impart 
Some didactical hints in a Needlework Art, 

Not described by the Countess of Wilton. 

An Art no-c unknown to the delicate hand 
Of the fail est and fxrst in this insular land, 

But in Patronage Royal delighting ; 
And which now your own feminine fantasy wins. 
Though it scarce seems a lady- like work that begins 

In a scratching and ends in a biting ' 



476 ETCHING MORALIZED. 

Yet, ! that the dames of the Scandalous School 
Would but use the same acid, and sharp-pointed tool, 

That are plied in the said operations — 
! would that our Candors on copper would sketch ! 
For the first of all things in beginning to etch 

j^YQ — good grounds for our representations. 

Those protective and delicate coatings of wax. 
Which are meant to resist the corrosive attacks 

That would ruin the copper completely ; 
Thin cerements which whoso remembers the Bee 
So applauded by Watts, the divine L.L.D., 

Will be careful to spread very neatly. 

For why '] like some intricate deed of the law, 
Should the ground in the process be left with a flaw, 

Aquafortis is far from a joker ; 
And attacking the part that no coating protects 
Will turn out as distressing to all your effects 

As a landlord who puts in a broker. 

Then carefully spread the conservative stuiT, 
Until all the bright metal is covered enough 

To repel a destructive so active ; 
For in Etching, as well as in Morals, pray note 
That a little raw spot, or a hole in a coat, 

Your ascetics find vastly attractive. 

Thus the ground being laid, very even and flat, 
And then smoked with a taper, till black as a hat, 

Still from future disasters to screen it. 
Just allow me, by way of precaution, to state, 
You must hinder the footman from changing your plcUe 

Nor yet suffer the butler to clean it. 

Nay, the housemaid, perchance, in her passion to scrub. 
May suppose the dull metal in want of a rub, 



ETCHING MORALIZED. 477 

Like the Shield which Swift's readers remember — 
Not to mention the chance of some other mishaps, 
Such as having your copper made up into caps 

To be worn on the First of September. 

But aloof from all damage by Betty or John, 
You secure the veiled surface, and trace thereupon 

The design you conceive the most proper : 
Yet gently, and not with a needle too keen. 
Lest it pierce to the wax through the paper between 

And of course play Old Scratch with the copper. 

So in worldly affairs, the sharp-practising man 
Is not always tlie one who succeeds in his plan, 

Witness Shylock's judicial exposure ; 
Who, as keen as his knife, yet with agony found, 
That while urging his point he was losing his ground^ 

And incurring a fatal disclosure. 

But, perhaps, without tracing at all, you may choose 
To indulge in some little extempore views. 

Like the older artistical people ; 
For example, a Corydon playing his pipe, 
In a Low Country marsh, with a Cow after Cuyp, 

And a Goat skipping over a steeple. 

A wild Deer at a rivulet taking a sup, 
With a couple of Pillars put in to fill up, 

Like the columns of certain diurnals ; 
Or a very brisk sea, in a very stiff gale. 
And a very Dutch boat, with a very big sail — 

Or a bevy of Retzsch's Infernals. 

Architectural study — or rich Arabesque — 
Allegorical dream — or a view picturesque, 
Near to Naples, or Venice, or Florence ; 
Or ''as harmless as lambs and as gentle as doves,*' 



178 ETCHIXG MORALIZED. 

A sweet family cluster of plump little Loves, 
Like the Children bj Reynolds or Lawrence, 

But whatever the subject, your exquisite taste 
Will insure a design very charming and chaste, 

Like yourself, full of nature and beauty — 
Yet besides the good j)omts you already reveal, 
You will need a. few others — of well-tempered steel, 

And especially formed for the duty. 

For suppose that the tool be imperfectly set, 

Over many weak lengths in your line you will fret, 

Like a pupil of Walton and Cotton 
Who remains by the brink of the water, agape, 
While the jack, trout, or barbel, effects its escape 

Throuo;h the o-ut or silk line beino; rotten. 

O CD O 

Therefore let the steel point be set truly and round, 
That the hnest of strokes may be even and sound. 

Flowing glibly where fancy would lead 'em. 
But, alas for the needle that fetters the hand, 
And forbids even sketches of Liberty's land 

To be drawn with the requisite freedom ! 

! the botches I 've seen by a tool of the sort. 
Rather hitchins;, than etchino;, and making;, in short, 

Such stiff, cra1)bed, and angular scratches, 
That the figures seemed statues or mummies from tombs, 
While the trees were as rigid as bundles of brooms, 

And the herbage like bunches of matches ! 

The stiff clouds as if carefully ironed and starched. 
While a cast-iron bridge, meant for wooden, o'er-arched 

Something more like a road than a river. 
Prithee, who in such characteristics could see 
Any trace of the beautiful land of the free — 

The Free-Mason — Free- i rader — Free-Liver ? 



ETCHING MORALIZED. 4T9 

But prepared by a hand that is skilful and nice, 
The fine point glides along like a skate on the ice, 

At the will of the G-entle Designer, 
Who impelling the needle just presses so much, 
That each line of her labor the copper may touch^^ 

As if done by a penny-a-liner. 

And, behold ! how the fast-growing images gleam \ 
Like the sparkles of gold in a sunshiny stream, 

Till, perplexed by the glittering issue, 
You repine for a light of a tenderer kind — 
And in choosino; a substance for makinfi; a blind, 

Do not sneeze at the paper called tissue. 

For, subdued by the sheet so transparent and white, 
Your design will appear in a soberer light. 

And reveal its defects on inspection, 
Just as Glory achieved, or political scheme. 
And some more of our dazzling performances, seem 

Not so bright on a cooler reflection. 

So the juvenile Poet Avith ecstasy views 

His first verses, and dreams that the songs of his Mus6 

Are as brilliant as Moore's and as tender — 
Till some critical sheet scans the faulty design, 
And, alas ! takes the shine out of every line 

That had formed such a vision of splendor. 

Certain objects, however, may come in your sketch, 
Wliich, designed by a hand unaccustomed to etch, 

With a luckless result may be branded , 
Wherefore add this particular rule to your code, 
Let all vehicles take the lorong. side of the road, 

And man, woman, and child, be left-handed. 

Yet regard not the awkward appearance with doubt, 
Bat remember how often mere blessings fall out, 



480 ETCHING MORALIZED. 

That at first seemed no better than curses 



So, till things take a ttini, live in hope, and depend 
That whatever is wrong will come right in the end, 
And console you for all your i everses. 

But of errors why speak, when for beauty and truth 
Your free, spirited Etching is worthy, in sooth, 

Of that Club (may all honor betide it !) 
Wliich, though dealing in copper, by genius and taste 
Has accomplished a service of plate not disgraced 

By the work of a Goldsmith beside it ! * 

So your sketch superficially drawn on the plate 
It becomes you to fix in a permanent state, 

Which involves a precise operation. 
With a keen-biting fluid, which eating its way — 
As in other professions is common, they say — 

Has attained an artistical station. 

And it's !, that some splenetic folks I could name, 
If they tmist deal in acids, would use but the same 

In such innocent graphical labors ! 
In the place of the virulent spirit wherewith — 
Like the polecat, the weasel, and tilings of that kith — 

They keep biting the backs of their neighbors ! 

But beforehand, with wax or the shoemaker's pitch, 
You must build a neat dyke round the margin, in which 

You may pour the dilute aquafortis. 
For if raw, like a dram, it will shock you to trace 
Your design with a horrible froth on its face. 

Like a wretch in articulo mortis. 

Like a wretch in the pangs that too many endure, 
From the use of strong tvaiers, without any pure, 
A vile practice, most sad and improper ! 

* The Deserted Village, illustrated by the Etching Club. 



ETCHING MORALIZED. 481 

For, from painful exan.ples, this warning is found, 
That the raw burning spirit will take up the ground ^ 
In the church-^^ard, as well as on copper ! 



But the Acid has duly been lowered, and bites 
Only just where the visible metal invites, 

Like a nature inclined to meet troubles , 
And, behold ! as each slender and glittering line 
EjBervesces, you trace the completed design 

In an eleijant bead- work of bubbles ! 



■'O" 



And yet, constantly, secretly, eating its way, 
The shrewd acid is making the substance its prey, 

Like seme sorrow beyond inquisition, 
Which is gnawing the heart and the brain all the while 
That the face is illumed by its cheerfullest smile, 

And the wit is in bright ebullition. 

But still stealthily feeding, the treacherous stuff 
Has corroded and deepened some portions enough — 

The pure sky, and the w\ater so placid — 
And, these tenderer tints to defend from attack, 
With some turpentine, varnish, and sooty lampblack, 

You must stop out the ferreting acid. 

But before with the varnishing brusli you proceed, 
Let the plate with cold water be thoroughly freed 

From the other less innocent liquor — 
After which, on whatever you want to protect, 
Put a coat that will act to that very effect, 

Like the black one that hangs on the Mcar. 

Then the varnish well dried — urge the ])iting again. 
But how long at its meal the emi forte may remain, 

Time and practice alone can determine : 
But of course not so long that the Mountain, and Mill 

31 



482 ETCHING MORALIZEI^. 

The rude Bridge, and the Figures, whatever you will, 
Are as black as the spots on your ermine. 

It is true, none the less, that a dark-looking scrap, 
With a sort of Blackheath, and Black Forest, mayhap, 

is considered as rather Rembrandty ; 
And that very black cattle, and very black sheep, 
A black dog, and a shepherd as black as a sweep, 

Are the pets of some great Dilettante. 

So with certain designers, one needs not to name, 
All this life is a dark scene of sorrow and shame, 

From our birth to our final adjourning — 
Yea, this excellent earth and its glories, alack ! 
What with ravens, palls, cottons, and devils, as black 

As a Warehouse for Family Mourning ! 

But before your own picture arrives at that pitch. 

While the lights are still light, and the shadows, though rich, 

More transparent than ebony shutters, 
Never minding what Black- Arted critics may say, 
Stop the biting, and pour the green fluid away. 

As you please, into bottles or gutters. 

Then removing the ground and the wax at a heat, 
Cleanse the surface with oil, spermaceti, or sweet — 

For your hand a performance scarce proper — • 
So some careful professional person secure — 
For the Laundress will not be a safe amateur — 

To assist you in cleaning the copper. 

And, in truth, 'tis a rather unpleasantish job, 
To be done on a hot German stove, or a hob — 

Thoui>;h as sure of an instant foro-ettinor 
When — as after the dark clearing off of a storm — 
The fair landscape shines out in a lustre as warm 

As the glow of the sun in its setting ! 



ODE. 4S3 

Thus your Etching complete, it remains but to hint, 
That with certain assistance from paper and print, 

Which the proper Mechanic will settle, 
You may charm all your Friends — without any sad tale 
Of such perils and ills as beset Lady Sale — 

With a fine India Proof of yow Metal. 



ODE 

ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF CLAPHAM ACADEMY. 

An me ! those old familiar bounds ! 
That classic house, those classic grounds, 

My pensive tliought recalls ! 
What tender urchins now confine, 
What little captives now repine. 

Within yon irksome walls ! 

Ay, that 's the very house ! I know 
Its ugly windows, ten a-row ! 

Its chimneys in the rear ! 
And there 's the iron rod so high, 
That drew the thunder from the sky 
And turned our table-beer ! 

There I was birched ! there I was bred I 
There like a little Adam fed 

From Learning's woful tree ! 
The weary tasks I used to con ! — 
The hopeless leaves I wept upon ! — 

Most fruitless leaves to me ! — 

The summoned class ! — the awful bow ! • 
I wonder who is master now 

And wholesome anguish sheds ! 
How many ushers now employs, 



484 ODE. 

How many maids to see the bojs 
Have nothing in their heads ! 

And Mrs. S* ** ? — Doth she abet 
(Like Pallas in the palour) yet 

Some fiivored two or three, — 
The little Crichtons of the hour, 
Her muffin-medals that devour, 

And swill her prize — bohea? 

Ay, there 's the playground ! there 's the lime, 
Beneath whose shade in summer's prime 

So w^ildly I have read ! — 
Who sits there 7ioiv, and skims the cream 
Of young Romance, and weaves a dream 

Of Love and Cottage-bread ? 

Who struts the Randall of the walk 7 
Who models tiny heads in chalk 7 

Who scoops the light canoe '? 
What early genius buds apace 7 
Where 's Poynter 7 Harris 7 Bowers 7 Chase ? 

Hal Baylis ? blithe Carew 7 

Alack ! they 're gone — a thousand ways! 
And some are serving in " the Greys," 

And some have perished young ! — ■ 
Jack Harris weds his second wife; 
Hal Baylis drives the wayne of life ; 

And blithe Carew — is huno;! 

Grave Bowers teaches ABC 
To Savages at Owhyee ; 

Poor Chase is with the worms! — 
All, aJl are gone — the olden breed ! — 
New crops of mushroom boys succeed, 

" And push us from our forms ! '^ 



ODE. 48§ 

Lo ! where they scramble foith, and shout, 
And leap, and skip, and mob about, 

At play where we have played ! 
Some hop, some run, (some fall), some twine 
Their crony arms: some in the shine, 

And some are in the shade ! 

Lo there what mixed conditions run ! 
The orphan lad : the widow's son ; 

And Fortune's favored care — 
The wealthy born, for whom she hath 
Macadamized the future path — 

The nabob's pampered heir ! 

Some brightly starred — some evil born; — 
For honor some, and some for scorn, — 

For ftiir or foul renown ! 
Good, bad, indifferent — none they lack ! 
Look, here 's a white, and there 's a black ! 

And there 's a Creole brown ! 

Some laugh and sing, some mope and weep, 
And wish t/ielr frugal sires would keep 

Their only sons at home ; — 
Some tease the future tense, and plan 
The full-oTOwn doini2;s of the man, 

And pant for years to come ! 

A foolish wish ! There 's one at hoop ; 
And four at Jives ! and five who stoop 

The marble taw to speed ! 
And one that curvets in and out, 
Reininc]i; his fellow-cob about, 

Would I were in his steed ! 

Yet he would gladly halt and drop 
That boyish harness off, to swop 



486 ODE. 

With this world's heavy van — 
To toil, to tug. little fool ! 
While thou can be a horse at school 

To wish to be a man ! 

Perchance thou deera'st it were a thing 
To wear a crown, — to be a king ! 

And sleep on regal down ! 
Alas ! thou know'st not kingly cares; 
Far happier is thy head that wears 

That hat without a crown ! 

And dost thou think that years acquire 
New added joys ? Dost think thy sire 

More happy than his son? 
That manhood's mirth? — 0, go thy ways 
To Drury-lane when p/«y5, 

And see hoyf forced our fun! 

Thy taws are brave ! — thy tops are rare ! 
Our tops are spun with coils of care, 

Our dumps are no delight ! — 
The Elgin marbles are but tame, 
And 'tis at best a sorry game 

To fly the Muse's kite ! 

Our hearts are dough, our heels are lead. 
Our topmost joys fall dull and dead, 

Like balls with no rebound ! 
And often with a faded eye 
We look behind, and send a sigh 

Towards that merry ground ! 

Then be contented. Thou hast got 
The most of lieaven in thy young lot • 
There's sky-blue in thy cup! 



A RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW. 487 

Thou 'It find th j manhood all too fast — 
Soon come, soon gone! and age at last 
A sorry breaking 2ip ! 



A RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW. 

0, WHEN I was a tiny boy 

My days and nights were fail of joy, 

My mates were blithe and kind ! — 
No wonder that J sometimes si^h. 
And dash the tear-drop from my eye, 

To cast a look behind ! 

A hoop was an eternal round 

Of pleasure. In those days I found 

A top a joyous thing ; — 
But now those past delights I drop ; 
My head, alas ! is all my top, 

And careful thou^-hts the strino* ! 

My marbles, — once my bag was storp^ - 
Now I must play with Elgin's lord, 

With Theseus for a taw ! 
My playful horse has slipt his string ' 
Forgotten all his capering, 

And harnessed to the law ! 

My kite — how fast and far it flew ! 
Whilst I, a sort of Franklin, drew 

My pleasure from the sky ! 
'T was papered o'er with studious themes, 
The tasks I wrote — my present dreams 

Will never soar so high ! 

My joys are wingless all and dead ; 
My dumps are made of more than lead ; 



488 A RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW. 

My flights soon find a fall ; 
My fears prevail, mj fancies droop, 
Joy never cometh with a hoop, 

And seldom with a call ! 

My football 's laid upon the shelf; 
I am a shuttlecock myself 

The world knocks to and fro ; — 
My archery is all unlearned, 
And grief against myself has turned 

My arrows and my bow ! 

No more in noontide sun I bask : 
My authorship '*s an endless task. 

My head 's ne'er out of school : 
My heart is pained with scorn and slight, 
I have too many foes to fight, 

And friends grown strangely cool ! 

The very chum that shared my cake 
Holds out so cold a hand to shake, 

It makes me shrink and sigh : — 
On this I will not dwell and hang. 
The changeling would not feel a pang 

Though these should meet his eye ! 

No skies so blue or so serene 

As then ; — no leaves look half so green 

As clothed the play-ground tree ! 
All things I loved are altered so, 
Nor does it ease my heart to know 

That change resides in me ! 

0, for the garb that marked the boy, 
The trousers made of corduroy. 

Well inked with black and red ! 
The crownless hat, ne'er deemed an ill — 



A RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW. 489 

It onlj let the sunshine still 
Repose upon ray head ! 

Oj for the riband round the neck ! 
The careless dog"s-ears apt to deck 

My book and collar both ! 
How can this formal man be styled 
Merely an Alexandrine child, 

A boy of larger growth ? 

0, for that small, small beer anew ! 

And (heaven's own type) that mild sky-blue 

That washed my sweet meals down ; 
The master even ! — and that small Turk 
That fagged me ! — worse is now my work — . 

A fag for all the town ! 

0, for the lessons learned by heart ! 
Ay, though the very birch's smart 

Should mark those hours again ; 
I 'd '' kiss the rod," and be resigned 
Beneath the stroke, and even find 

Some sugar in the cane ! 

The Arabian Nights rehearsed in bed ! 
The Fairy Tales in school-time read, 

By stealth, 'twixt verb and noun ! 
The angel form that always walked 
In all my dreams, and looked and talked 

Exactly like Miss Brown ! 

The om/ie bene — Christmas come : 
The prize of merit, won for home — 

Merit had prizes then ! 
But now I write for days and days, 
For fiime — a deal of empty praise, 

Without the silver pen ! 



490 TOWN AND COUNTRY. 

Then home, sweet home ! the crowded coacli 
The joyous shout — the loud approach — 

The windmg horns like rams' ! 
The meeting sweet that made me thrill, 
The sweet-meats almost sweeter still, 

No " satis " to the " jams ! " — 

When that I was a tiny boy 

My days and nights were full of joy, 

My mates were blithe and kind ! 
No wonder that I sometimes sigh, 
And dash the tear-drop from my eje, 

To cast a look behind ! 



TOWN AND COUNTRY. 

AN ODE. 

! WELL may poets make a fuss 
In summer time, and sigh •' O rus P^ 

Of London pleasures sick : 
My heart is all at pant to rest 
In Greenwood shades — my eyes detest 

This endless meal of brick ! 

What joy have I in June's return ? 
My feet are parched, my eyeballs burn^ 

I scent no flowery gust : 
But faint the flagging zephyr springs, 
With dry Macadam on its wings, 

And turns me " dust to dust." 

My sun his daily course renews 
Due east, but with no Eastern dews ; 

The path is dry and hot ! 
His setting shows more tamely still, 



TOWN AND COUNTRY. 491 

He sinks behind no purple hill, 
But down a chimney's pot ! 

! but to hear the milkmaid blithe, 
Or early mower whet his scythe 

The dewy meads among ! — 
My grass is of that sort, alas ! 
That makes no hay — called sparrow-grass 

By folks of vulgar tongue ! 

! but to smell the woodbines sweet ! 

1 think of cowslip cups — but meet 
With very vile rebuffs ! 

For meadow-buds I get a whiff 
Of Cheshire cheese, — or only sniff 
The turtle made at Cuflf's. 

How tenderly Rousseau reviewed 
His periwinkles ! — mine are stew^ed ! 

My rose blooms on a gown ! — 
I hunt in vain for efjlantine, 
And find my blue-bell on the sign 

That marks the Bell and Crown : 

Where are ye, birds ! that blithely wing 
From tree to tree, and gayly sing 

Or mourn in thickets deep ? 
My cuckoo has some ware to sell, 
The watchman is my Philomel, 

My blackbird is a sweep ! 

Where are ye, linnet, lark, and thrush ! 
That perch on leafy bough and bush, 

And tune the various sono; ? 
Two hurdy-gurdists, and a poor 
Street-Handel grinding at my door, 

Are all my " tuneful throng.'* 



492 TOWN AND COUNTRY. 

Where are je, early-purling streams, 
Whose waves reflect the morning beams. 

And colors of the skies ? 
My rills are only puddle-drains 
From shambles, or reflect the staius 

Of calimanco-dyes ! 

Sweet are the little brooks that run 
O'er pebbles glancing in the sun, 

Singing in soothing tones : — 
Not thus the city streamlets flow ; 
They make no music as they go, 

Thoug;h never •' off the stones.'^ 



o 



Where are ye, pastoral pretty sheep, 
That wont to bleat, and frisk, and leap, 

Beside your woolly dams ? 
Alas ! instead of harmless crooks, 
My Corydons use iron hooks, 

And skin — not shear — the lambs. 

The pipe whereon, in olden day. 
The Arcadian herdsman used to play 

Sweetly, here soundeth not ; 
But merely breatlies unwholesome fumes, 
Meanwhile the city boor colisumes 

The rank weed — " piping hot." 

All rural things are vilely mocked, 
On every hand the sense is shocked, 

With o!)jccts hard to bear : 
Shades — \x'rnal shades ! — - where wine is sold I 
And, for a turfy bank, behold 

An Ingram's rustic chair ! 

Where are ye, London meads and bowers, 
And gardens redolent of flowers 



I*AMENT FOR THE DECLINE OF CHIVALRY. 493 

Wnerein the zephyr wons ! 
Alas ! Moor Fields are fields no more : 
See Hatton's Garden bricked all o'er; 

And that bare wood — St. John's. 

No pastoral scenes procure me peace ; 
I hold no Leasowes in my lease. 

No cot set round with trees : 
No sheep-white hill my dwelling flanks ; 
And omnium furnishes my banks 

With brokers — not with bees 

! well may poets make a fuss 

In summer time, and sio-h " O ?'hs ! '' 

Of city pleasures sick : 
My heart is all at pant to rest 
In greenwood shades — my eyes detest 

That endless meal of brick ! 



LAIklENT FOR THE DECLINE OF CHIVALRY. 

Well hast thou cried, departed Burke, 
All chivalrous romantic work 

Is ended now and past ! — 
That iron age — which some have thought 
Of mettle rather overwrought — 

Is now all overcast ! 

Ay ! where are those heroic knights 
Of old — those armadillo wights 

Who wore the plated vest ? — 
Great Charlemagne and all his peers 
Are cold — enjoying with their spears 

An everlasting rest ! 



494 LAMENT FOR THE DECLINE OF CHIVALRY. 

The bold King Arthur sleepeth sound ; 
So sleep his knights who gave that Round 

Old Table such eclat ! 
0, Time has plucked the plumy brow 1 
And none engage at Turnej's now 

But those that go to law ! 

Grim John o' Gaunt is quite gone by, 
And Guy is nothing but a Guy, 

Orlando lies forlorn ! — 
Bold Sidney, and his kidney — nay, 
Those -'early champions " — what are they 

But kn)i>;hts without a morn. 

No Percy branch now perseveres 

Like those of old in breaking spears — 

The name is now a lie ! — 
Surgeons, alone, by any chance, 
Are all that ever couch a lance 

To couch a body's eye ! 

Alas for Lion-Hearted Dick, 
That cut the Moslems to the quick, 

His weapon lies in peace : 
0, it would warm them in a trice. 
If they could only have a spice 

Of his old mace in Greece ! 

The famed Rinaldo lies a-cold, 
And Tancred too, and Godfrey bold. 

That scaled the holy wall ! 
No Saracen meets Paladin, 
We hear of no great Saladin, 

But only grow the small ! 

Our Cressys, too, have dwindled since 
To penny things — at our Black Prince 



LAMENT FOR THE DECLINE OF CHIVALRY. 495 

Historic pens would scoff: 
The only one we moderns had 
"Was nothing but a Sandwich lad, 

And measles took him off ! 

Where are those old and feudal clans, 
Their pikes, and bills, and partisans, 

Their hauberks, jerkins, buffs? 
A battle was a battle then, 
A breathing piece of work ; but men 

Fight now — with powder puffs. 

The curtal-axe is out of date ; 

The good old cross-bow bends — to Fate ; 

'T is gone, the archer's craft I 
Ko tough arm bends the springing yew, 
And jolly draymen ride, in lieu 

Of Death, upon the shaft ! 

The spear, the gallant tilter's pride, 
The rusty spear, is laid aside, — 

0, spits now domineer ! 
The coat of mail is left alone, — 
And where is all chain armor gone ? 

Go ask a Brighton Pier. 

"We fight in ropes, and not in lists. 
Bestowing handcuffs with our fists, 

A low and vulgar art ! 
No mounted man is overthrown : 
A tilt ! it is a thing unknown — 

Except upon a cart ! 

Methinks I see the bounding barb, 
Clad like his chief in steely garb, 

For warding steel's appliance I 
Methinks I hear the trumpet stir ! 



496 DOMESTIC ASIDES. 

'T is but the guard to Exeter, 

That bugles the "Defiance." 

In cavils when will cavaliers 
Set ringing helmets bj the ears, 

And scatter plumes about? 
Or blood — if they are in the vein ? 
That tap will never run again — 

Alas ! tne Casque is out ! 

No iron-cracklino; now is scored 
By dint of battle-axe or sword, 

To find a vital place — 
Though certain doctors still pretend, 
A while, before they kill a friend, 

To labor through his case ! 

Farewell, then, ancient men of might 1 
Crusader, errant-squire, and knight ! 

Our coais and custom soften. 
To rise would only make you weep — 
Sleep on. in rusty-iron sleep, 

As in a safety coflSn ! 



DOMESTIC ASTDES; 

OK, TRUTH IN PARENTHESES. 

'•* I REALLY take it very kind, 

This visit, Mrs. Skinner ! 
I have not seen you such an age — 

(The wretch has come to dinner 1 > 



DOMESTIC ASIDES. 497 

" Your daughters, too, what loves of girls — 

What heads for painters' easels ! 
Come here, and kiss the infant, dears — 

(And give it p'rhaps the measles !) 

" Your charming boys, I see, are home 

From Reverend Mr. Russell's ; 
'T was very kind to bring them both — 

(What boots for my new Brussels I) 

" What ! little Clara left at home ! 

Well, now, I call that shabby ; 
I should liave loved to kiss her so — 

(A flabby, dabby, babby I) 

" And Mr. S., I hope he 's well ; 

Ah 1 though he lives so liandy, 
He never now drops in to sup — 

(The better for our brandy !) 

'^ Come, take a seat — I long to hear 

About Matilda's marriage ; 
You're come, of course, to spend the day — - 

(Thank Heaven I hear the carriage !) 

" What ! must you go ? next time, I hope, 

You'll give me longer measure ; 
Nay — I shall see you down the stairs — ' 

(With most uncommon pleasure !) 

'' Good-bye ! good-bye ! remember all, 
Next time you'll take your dinners ! 

(Now, David, mind I'm not at home, 
In future to the Skinners 1") 

32 



VOLUME SECOND 



THE PLEA 



OF THE 



MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 



VOL. n. 1 



TO CHARLES LAMB. 



Mt dear Friend : I thank my literary fortune that I am not reduced, like man 
better wits, to barter dedications, for the hope or promise of patronage, with som 
nominally great man ; but that where true affection points, and honest respect, I ai 
free to gratify my head and lieart by a sincere inscription. An intimacy and deal 
ness worthy of a much earlier date than our acquaintance can refer to, direct me t 
once to your name ; and with this acknowledgment of your ever kind feeling toward 
me, I desire to record a respect and admiration for you as a writer, which no one a( 
quainted with our hterature, save Elia himself, will think disproportionate or mii 
placed. If I had not these better reasons to govern me, I should be guided to th 
same selection by your intense yet critical relish for the woi'ks of our great Drams 
tist, and for that favorite play in particular which has furnished the subject of m 
verses. 

It is my design, in the following Poem, to celebrate by an allegory that immorta 
ity which Shakspeare has conferred on the Fairy mythology by his Jlidsummer Kight 
Dream But for him, those pretty children of our childhood would leave barely thei 
names to our maturer years ; they belong, as the mites vipon the plum, to the blooi 
of fancy, a thing generally too frail and beautiful to withstand the rude handling c 
Time : but the Poet has made thi.* most perishable part of the mind's creation equ£ 
to the most enduring ; he has so intertwined the Elfins with human sympathies, an 
linked them by so many delightful associations with the productions of nature, ths 
they are as real to the mind's ej^e as their green magical circles to the outer sense. 

It would have been a pity for such a race to go extinct, even though they were bu 
as the butterflies that hover about the leaves and blossoms of the visible world. 

I am, my dear friend, 

Yours, most truly, 

T. Hood. 



THE 



PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIEIES 



'T WAS in that mellow season of the year 

When the hot Sun singes the yellow leaves 

Till they be gold, and with a broader sphere 

The Moon looks down on Ceres and her sheaves ; 

When more abundantly the spider weaves, 

And the cold wind breathes from a chillier clime : 

That forth I fared, on one of those still eves, 

Touched with the dewy sadness of the time, 

To think how the bright months had spent their prime 

So that, wherever I addressed my way, 

( seemed to track the melancholy feet 

Of him that is the Father of Decay, 

.Ind spoils at once the sour weed and the sweet ; — 

iVherefore regretfully I made retreat 

Co some unwasted regions of my brain, 

Jharmed with the light of summer and the heat, 

ind bade that bounteous season bloom again, 

Vnd sprout fresh flowers in mine own domain. 

[i was a shady and sequestered scene, 
Like those famed gardens of Boccaccio, 
Planted with his own laurels ever green, 
A^nd roses that for endless summer blow ; 



THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIEb. 

And there were fountain springs to overflow 
Their marble basins ; and cool green arcades 
Of tall o'erarching sycamores, to throw 
Athwart the dappled path their dancing shades ; 
With timid conejs cropping the green blades. 

And there were crystal pools, peopled with fish, 
Argent and gold ; and some of Tyrian skin, 
Some crimson-barred : — and ever at a wish 
They rose obsequious till the wave grew thin 
As glass upon their backs, and then dived in, 
Quenching their ardent scales in watery gloom ; 
Whilst others with fresh hues rowed forth to win 
My changeable regard, — for so we doom 
Things born of thought to vanish or to bloom. 

And there were many birds of many dyes, 
From tree to tree still faring to and fro. 
And stately peacocks with their splendid eyes. 
And gorgeous pheasants with their golden glow 
Like Iris just bedabbled in her bow, 
Besides some vocalists, without a name. 
That oft on fairy errands come and go, 
With accents magical ; — and all were tame, 
And pecked at my hand where'er I came. 

And for my sylvan company, in lieu 
Of Pampinea with her lively peers. 
Sate Queen Titania with her pretty crew. 
All in their liveries quaint, with elfin gears; 
For she was gracious to my childish years, 
And m.ade me free of her enchanted round ; 
Wherefore this dreamy scene she still endears, 
And. plants her court upon a verdant mound. 
Fenced with umbrageous woods and groves profound. 



THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 

*' Ah, me," she cries, "was ever moonlight seen 
So clear and tender for our midnight trips '? 
Go some one forth and with a trump convene 
Mj lieges all ! " — Away the goblin skips 
A pace or two apart, and deftly strips 
The ruddy skin from a sweet rose's cheek, 
Then blows the shuddering leaf between his lips, 
Making it utter forth a shrill small shriek. 
Like a frayed bird in the gray owlet's beak. 

And, lo ! upon my fixed delighted ken 
Appeared the loyal Fays. Some by degrees 
Crept from the primrose-buds that opened then, 
And some from bell-shaped blossoms like the bees; 
Some from the dewy meads, and rushy leas. 
Flew up like chafers when the rustics pass ; 
Some from the rivers, others from tall trees 
Dropped, like shed blossoms, silent to the grass, 
Splits and elfins small, of every class. 

Peri and Pixy, and quaint Puck the Antic, 
Brought Robin Goodfellow, that merry swain ; 
And stealthy Mab, queen of old realms romantic. 
Came too, from distance, in her tiny wain, 
Fresh dripping from a cloud — some bloomy rain, 
Then circlino; the bright Moon, had washed her car, 
And still bedewed it with a various stain : 
Lastly came Ariel, shooting from a star. 
Who bears all fairy embassies afar. 

But Oberon, that night elsewhere exiled. 
Was absent, whether some distempered spleen 
Kept him and his fair mate unreconciled. 
Or warfare with the Gnome (whose race had been 



THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 

Sometimes obnoxious), kept him from his queen, 
And made her now peruse the starry skies 
Prophetical with such an absent mien ; 
Ilowbeit, the tears stole often to her eyes, 
And oft the Moon was incensed with her sighs — 

Which made the elves sport drearily, and soon 
Their hushing dances languished to a stand, 
Like midnight leaves when, as the Zephyrs swoon^ 
All on their drooping stems they sink unfanned, — 
So into silence drooped the fairy band, 
To see their empress dear so pale and still, 
Crowding her softly round on either hand, 
As pale as frosty snow-drops, and as chill, 
To whom the sceptred dame reveals her ill. 

" Alas ! " quoth she, " ye know our fairy lives 
Are leased upon the fickle faith of men ; 
Not measured out against fate's mortal knives, 
Like human gossamers, we perish when 
We fade, and are forgot in worldly ken, — 
Though poesy has thus prolonged our date, 
Thanks be to the sweet Bard's auspicious pen 
That rescued us so long ! — howbeit of late 
[ feel some dark misgivings of our fate. 

" And this dull day my melancholy sleep 
Hath been so thronged with images of woe. 
That even now I cannot choose but weep 
To think this was some sad prophetic show 
Of future horror to befall us so, — 
Of mortal wreck and uttermost distress, — 
Yea, our poor empire's fall and overthrow, — 
For this was my long vision's dreadful stress, 
And v\ hen I waked my trouble was not less. 



THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 

'^ Whenever to the clouds I tried to st^ek, 
Such leaden weight dragged these Icarian wings, 
My faithless wand was wavering and weak, 
And slimy toads had trespassed in our rings — 
The birds refused to sino; for me — all things 
Disowned their old allegiance to our spells ; 
The rude bees pricked me with their rebel stings ; 
And, when I passed, the valley-lily's bells 
Rang out, methought, most melancholy knells. 

*' And ever on the faint and flagging air 

A doleful spirit with a dreary note 

Cried in my fearful ear, ' Prepare ! prepare ! ' 

Which soon I knew came from a raven's throat. 

Perched on a cypress-bough not far remote,— 

A cursed bird, too ci'afty to be shot. 

That alway cometh with his soot-black coat 

To make hearts dreary : — for he is a blot 

Upon the book of life, as well ye wot ! — 

" Wherefore some while I bribed him to be mute, 
With bitter acorns stuffing his foul maw, 
Which barely I appeased, when some fresh bruit 
Startled me all aheap ! — and soon I saw 
The horridest shape that ever raised my awe, — 
A monstrous giant, very huge and tall. 
Such as in elder times, devoid of law, 
With wicked might grieved the primeval ball, 
And this was sure the deadliest of them all ! 

'' Gaunt was he as a wolf of Languedoc, 
With bloody jaws, and frost upon his crown ; 
So from his barren poll one hoary lock 
Over his wrinkled front fell far adown. 



8 THE PLEA OE THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 

Well-nigh to where his frosty brows did frown 
Like jagged icicles at cottage eaves ; 
And for his coronal he wore some brown 
And bristled ears gathered from Ceres' sheaves, 
Entwined with certain sere and russet leaves. 

" And, lo ! upon a mast reared far aloft, 
He bore a very bright and crescent blade. 
The which he waved so dreadfully, and oft, 
In meditative spite, that, sore dismayed, 
I crept into an acorn-cup for shade ; 
Meanv/hile the horrid effigy went by : 
I trow his look was dreadful, for it made 
The trembling birds betake them to the sky, 
For every leaf was lifted by his sigh. 

" And ever, as he sighed, his foggy breath 
Blurred out the landscape like a flight of smoke : 
Thence knew I this was either dreary Death 
Or Time, who leads all creatures to his stroke. 
Ah, wretched me ! " — Here, even as she spoke, 
The melancholy Shape came gliding in. 
And leaned his back against an antique oak, 
Folding his wings, that were so fine and thin, 
They scarce were seen against the Dryad's skin. 

Then what a fear seized all the little rout ! 
Look how a flock of panicked sheep will stare — 
And huddle close — and start — and wheel about, 
Watching the roaming mongrel here and there, — 
So did that sudden Apparition scare 
All close aheap those small affi^ighted things ; 
Nor sought they now the safety of the air, 
As if some leaden spell withheld their wings ; 
But who can fly thai ancientest of Kings '^ 



THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 

Whom now the Queen, with a forestalling tear 
And previous sigh, beginneth to entreat, 
Bidding him spare, for love, her lieges dear : 
" Alas ! " quoth she, " is there no nodding wheat 
Ripe for thj crooked weapon, and more meet,— 
Or withered leaves to ravish from the tree, — 
Or crumbling battlements for thy defeat 7 
Think but what vaunting monuments there be 
Builded in spite and mockerj of thee. 

'' 0, fret away the fabric walls of Fame, 
And grind down marble Caesars with the dust : 
Make tombs inscriptionless — raze each high namo 
And waste old armors of renown with rust • 
Do all of this, and thy revenge is just : 
Make such decays the trophies of thy prime. 
And check Ambition's overweening lust, 
That dares exterminating war with Time, — 
But we are guiltless of that lofty crime. 

" Frail, feeble sprites ! — the children of a dream ! 

Leased on the sufferance of fickle men. 

Like motes dependent on the sunny beam. 

Living but in the sun's indulgent ken, 

And when that light w^ithdraws, withdrawing then ; 

So do we flutter in the glance of youth 

And fervid fancy, — and so perish when 

The eye of faith groAVS aged ; — in sad truth, 

Feeling thy sway, Time ! though not thy tooth 

" Where be those old divinities forlorn. 
That dwelt in trees, or haunted in a stream ? 
Alas ! their memories are dimmed and torn, 
Like the remainder tatters of a dream : 



10 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 

So will it fare with our poor thrones, I deem ; — ■ 
For us the same dark trench Oblivion delves, 
That holds the wastes of every human scheme. 
0, spare us then, — and these our pretty elves, 
We soon, alas ! shall perish of ourselves ! " 

Now as she ended, with a sigh, to name 
Those old Olympians, scattered by the whirl 
Of fortune's giddy wheel and brought to shame, 
Methought a scornful and malignant curl 
Showed on the lips of that malicious churl, 
To think what noble havocs he had made : 
So that I feared he all at once would hurl 
The harmless fairies into endless shade, — 
Howbeit he stopped a while to whet his blade. 

Pity it was to hear the elfins' wail 
Rise up in concert from their mingled dread ; 
Pity it was to see them, all so pale, 
Gaze on the grass as for a dying bed : — 
But Puck was seated on a spider's thread, 
That hung between two branches of a brier. 
And 'gan to swing and gambol heels o'er head, 
Like any South wark tumbler on a wire, 
For him no present grief could long inspire. 

Meanwhile the Queen with many piteous drops, 
Falling like tiny sparks full fast and free. 
Bedews a pathway from her throne ; — and stops 
Before the foot of her arch enemy, 
And with her little arms enfolds his knee. 
That shows more gristly from that fiir embrace ; 
But she will ne'er depart. " Alas ! " quoth she, 
" My painful fingers I will here enlace 
Till I have gained your pity for our race. 



THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 11 

^' What have we ever done to earn this grudo-e, 

And hate — (if not too humble for thy hating ?) 

Look o'er our labors and our lives, and judo-e 
If there be any ills of our creating ; 
For we are very kindly creatures, dating 
With nature's charities still sweet and bland : — 
0, think this murder worthy of debating ! " — 
Herewith she makes a signal with her hand, 
To beckon some one from the Fairy band. 

Anon I saw one of those elfin things, 

Clad all in white like any chorister, 

Come fluttering forth on his melodious wings, 

That made soft music at each little stir, 

But something louder than a bee's demur 

Before he lights upon a bunch of broom, 

And thus 'gan he with Saturn to confer, — 

And, 0, his voice was sweet, touched with the glocm 

Of that sad theme that argued of his doom ! 

Quoth he, "We make all melodies our care, 
That no false discoi-ds may offend the Sun, 
Music's great master — tuning everywhere 
All pastoral sounds and melodies, each one 
Duly to place and season, so that none 
May harshly interfere. We rouse at morn 
The shrill sweet lark ; and when the day is done, 
Hush silent pauses for the bird forlorn. 
That singeth with her breast against a thorn. 

" We gather in loud choirs the twittering race, 
That make a chorus with their single note ; 
And tend on new-fledged birds in every place, 
That duly they may get their tunes by rote ; 



12 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 

And oft, like echoes, answering remote, 
We hide in thickets from the feathered throng, 
And strain in rivalship each throbbing throat, 
Singing in shrill responses all day long, 
Whilst the glad truant listens to our song, 

" Wherefore, great King of Years, as thou dost Icve 
The raining music from a morning cloud, 
When vanished larks are carolling above. 
To wake Apollo with their pipings loud : — 
If ever thou hast heard in leafy shroud 
The sweet and plaintive Sappho of the dell, 
Show thy sweet mercy on this little crowd, 
And we will muffle up the sheepfold bell 
Whene'er thou listenest to Philomel." 

Then Saturn thus : " Sweet is the merry lark, 
That carols in man's ear so clear and strong ; 
And youth must love to listen in the dark 
That tuneful elegy of Tereus' wrong ; 
But I have heard that ancient strain too long, 
For sweet is sweet but when a little strange. 
And I grow weary for some newer song ; 
For wherefore had I wino;s, unless to rano-e 
Through all things mutable from change to change ? 



" But wouldst thou hear the melodies of Time, 
Listen when sleep and drowsy darkness roll 
Over hushed cities, and the midnight chime 
Sounds from their hundred clocks, and deep bells toll 
Like a last knell over the dead world's soul, 
Saying, Time shall be final of all things. 
Whose late, last voice must elegize the whole, — 
0, then I clap aloft my brave broad wings. 
And make the wide air treml)lo while it rings ! '' 



THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES- iJl 

Then next a fair Eve-Fay made meek address, 
Saying, "We be the handmaids of the Spring, 
In sign whereof, May, the quaint broideress. 
Hath wrought her samplers on our gauzy wing. 
We tend upon buds' birth and blossoming, 
And count the leafy tributes that they owe — 
As, so much to the earth — so much to fling 
In showers to the brook — so much to go 
In whirlwinds to the clouds that made them grow. 

' ' The pastoral cowslips are our little pets, 
And daisy stars, whose firmament is green ; 
Pansies, and those veiled nuns, meek violets. 
Sighing to that warm world from which they screen ; 
And golden daffodils, plucked for May's Queen ; 
And lonely harebells, quaking, on the heath ; 
And Hyacinth, long since a fair youth seen. 
Whose tuneful voice, turned fragrance in his breath. 
Kissed by sad Zephyr, guilty of his death. 

" The widowed primrose weeping to the moon, 
And saffron crocus in whose chalice bright 
A cool libation hoarded for the noon 
Is kept — and she that purifies the light, 
The virgin lily, fliithful to her white, 
Whereon Eve v.^ept in Eden for her shame ; 
And the most dainty rose, Aurora's spright. 
Our every godchild, by whatever name — 
Spare us our lives, for we did nurse the same ! " 

Then that old Mower stamped his heel, and struck 
His hurtful scythe against the harmless ground, 
Saying, " Ye foolish imps, when am I stuck 
With gaudy buds, or like a wooer crowned 



14 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 

With flowery chaplets, save when they are found 

Withered ? — Whenever have I plucked a rose, 

Except to scatter its vain leaves around ? 

For so all gloss of beauty I oppose. 

And bring decay on every flower that blows. 

" Or when am I so wroth as when I view 

The wanton pride of Summer ; — how she decks 

The birth-day world with blossoms ever new. 

As if Time had not lived, and heaped great wrecks 

Of years on years ? — 0, then I bravely vex 

And catch the gay Months in their gaudy plight, 

And slay them with the wreaths about their necks. 

Like foolish heifers in the holy rite, 

And raise great trophies to my ancient might f 

Then saith another, " We are kindly things, 
And like her offspring nestle with the dove, — 
Witness these hearts embroidered on our wings, 
To show our constant patronage of love : -— 
We sit at even, in sweet bowers above 
Lovers, and shake rich odors on the air. 
To mingle with their sighs ; and still remove 
The startling owl, and bid the bat forbear 
Their privacy, and haunt some other where. 

'' And we are near the mother when she sits 
Beside her infant in its wicker bed ; 
And we are in the fairy scene that flits 
Across its tender brain : sweet dreams we shed, 
And whilst the tender little soul is fled 
Away, to sport with our young elves, the while 
We touch the dimpled cheek with roses red, 
And tickle the soft lips until they smile, 
So that their careful parents they beguile. 



I 



THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMEK FAIRIES. 15 

0, then, if ever thou hast breathed a vow 
At Love's dear portal or at pale moon-rise 
Crushed the dear curl on a regardful brow 
That did not frown thee from thy honej prize — 
If ever thy sweet son sat on thy thighs, 
And wooed thee from thy careful thoughts withhi 
To watch the harmless beauty of his eyes, 
Or glad thy fingers on his smooth soft skin, 
For love's dear sake, let us thy pity win ! " 

Then Saturn fiercely thus : '' What joy have I 
In tender babes, that have devoured mine own, 
Whenever to the light I heard them cry, 
Till foolish Rhea cheated me with stone ? 
Whereon, till now, is my great hunger shown. 
In monstrous dints of my enormous tooth ; 
And, — but the peopled world is too full grown 
For hunger's edge, — I would consume all youth 
At one great meal, without delay or ruth I 

" For I am well-nigh crazed and wild to hear 
How boastful fathers taunt me with their breed, 
Saying, ' We shall not die nor disappear, 
But in these other selves, ourselves succeed, 
Even as ripe flowers pass into their seed 
Only to be renewed from prime to prime,' 
All of which boastings I am forced to read. 
Besides a thousand challenges to Time 
Which bragging lovers have compiled in rhyme. 

' ' Wherefore, when they are sweetly met o' nights, 
Ther(5 will I steal, and with my hurried hand 
Startle them suddenly from their dehghts 
Befoi'e their next encounter hath been planned. 



16 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 

Ravishing hours in little minutes spanned ; 
But when thej say farewell, and grieve apart. 
Then like a leaden statue I will stand, 
Meanwhile their many tears incrust my dart, 
And with a ragged edge cut heart from heart." 

Then next a merry Woodsman, clad in green, 
Stept vanward from his mates, that idly stood 
Each at his proper ease, as they had been 
Nursed in the liberty of old Sherwood, 
And wore the livery of Kobin Hood, 
Who wont in forest shades to dine and sup, — 
So came this chief right frankly, and made good 
His haunch against his axe, and thus spoke up, 
Doffing his cap, which was an acorn's cup : 

"We be small foresters and gay, who tend 
On trees and all their furniture of green. 
Training the young boughs airily to bend. 
And show blue snatches of the sky between ; — 
Or knit more close intricacies, to screen 
Birds' crafty dwellings as may hide them besi 
But most the timid blackbird's — . she, that seen, 
Will bear black poisonous berries to her nest, 
Lest man should cao;e the darlings of her breast. 



"&^ 



" We bend each tree in proper attitude, 
And founting willows train in silvery falls ; 
We frame all shady roofs and arches rude, 
And verdant aisles leading to Dryads' halls, 
Or deep recesses where the Echo calls ; — 
We shape all plumy trees against the sky, 
And carve tall elms' Corinthian capitals, — 
When sometimes, as our tiny hatchets ply, 
Men say, the tapping woodpecker is nigh. 



THE PLEA OF THE MIDSI3MMER FAIRIES. 17 

" Sometimes we scoop the squirrers hollow cell, 

And sometimes carve quaint letters on trees' rind 

That haplj some lone musing wight may spell 

Dainty Aminta, — gentle Rosalind, — 

Or chastest Laura, — sweetly called to mind 

In sylvan solitudes, ere he lies down ; — 

And sometimes we enrich gray stems, with twined 

And vagrant ivy, — or rich moss, whose brown 

Burns into gold as the warm sun goes down. 

" And, lastly, for mirth's sake and Christmas cheer, 
We bear the seedling berries, for increase. 
To graft the Druid oaks, from year to year, 
Careful that mistletoe may never cease ; — 
Wherefore, if thou dost prize the shady peace 
Of sombre forests, or to see light break 
Through sylvan cloisters, and in spring relea^se 
Thy spirit amongst leaves from careful ake, 
Spare us our lives for the Green Dryad's sake." 

Then Saturn, with a frown : "Go forth, and fell 
Oak for your coffins, and thenceforth lay by 
Your axes for the rust, and bid farewell 
To all sweet birds, and the blue peeps of sky 
Through tangled branches, for ye shall not spy 
The next green generation of the tree ; 
But hence with the dead leaves, whene'er they fly,-— - 
Which in the bleak air I would rather see, 
Than flights of the most tuneful birds that be. 

" For I dislike all prime, and verdant pets, 
Ivj except, that on the aged wall 
Preys with its worm-like roots, and daily frets 
The crumbled tower it seems to league withal, 

VOL. II. 2 



18 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 

King-like, worn down by its own coronal : — 

Neither in forest haunts love I to won, 

Before the golden plumage 'gins to fall, 

And leaves the brown bleak limbs with few leaves on, 

Or bare — like Nature in her skeleton. 

" For then sit I amongst the crooked boughs, 
Wooing dull Memory with kindred sighs ; 
And there in rustling nuptials we espouse, 
Smit by the sadness in each other's eyes ; — 
But Hope must have green bowers and blue skies, 
And must be courted with the gauds of spring ; 
Whilst Youth leans godlike on her lap, and cries, 
What shall we always do, but love and sing 7-— 
And Time is reckoned a discarded thing." ^ 

Here in my dream it made me fret to see 

How Puck, the antic, all this dreary while 

Had blithely jested with calamity, 

With mistimed mirth mocking the doleful style 

Of his sad comrades, till it raised my bile 

To see him so reflect their grief aside. 

Turning their solemn looks to half a smile — 

Like a straight stick shown crooked in the tide ; — 

But soon a novel advocate I spied. 

Quoth he, ' ' We teach all natures to fulfil 

Their fore-appointed crafts, and instincts meet, — 

The bee's sweet alchemy, — the spider's skill, — 

The pismire's care to garner up his wheat, — 

And rustic masonry to swallows fleet, — 

The lapwing's cunning to preserve her nest, — 

But most that lesser pelican, the sweet 

And shrilly ruddock, with its bleeding breastj 

Its tender pity of poor babes distrest. 



THE PLEA OF IHE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 19 

'' Sometimes we cast our shapes, and in sleek skins 
Delve with the timid mole, that aptly delves 
From our example ; so the spider spins, 
And eke the silk- worm, patterned by ourselves : 
Sometimes we travail on the summer shelves 
Of early bees, and busy toils commence, 
Watched of wise men, that know not we are elves. 
But gaze and marvel at our stretch of sense 
And praise our human-like intelligence. 

" Wherefore, by thy delight in that old tale, 
And plaintive dirges the late robins sing. 
What time the leaves are scattered by the gale, 
Mindful of that old forest burying ; — 
As thou dost love to watch each tiny thing. 
For whom our craft most curiously contrives, 
If thou hast caught a bee upon the wing. 
To take his honey-bag, — spare us our lives, 
And we will pay the ransom in full hives." 

■' Kow by my glass," quoth Time, '' ye do offend 
In teaching the brown bees that careful lore. 
And frugal ants, whose millions would have end, 
But they lay up for need a timely store. 
And travail with the seasons evermore ; 
Whereas Great Mammoth long hath passed away, 
And none but I can tell what hide he wore ; 
Whilst purblind men, the creatures of a day. 
In riddling wonder his great bones survey." 

Then came an elf, right beauteous to behold, 
Whose coat was like a brooklet that the sun 
^ath all embroidered with its crooked gold, 
was so quaiD*^^'« ^-ought and overrnr 



-0 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 

With spangled traceries, — most meet for one 
That was a warden of the pearly streams ; — 
And as he stept out of the shadows dun, 
His jewels sparkled in the pale moon's gleams. 
And shot into the air their pointed beams. 

Quoth he, ' ' We bear the gold and silver keys 

Of bubbling springs and fountains, that below 

Course through the veiny earth, — which, when tiiey freeze 

Into hard crysolites, we bid to flow, 

Creeping like subtle snakes, when, as they go, 

We guide their windings to melodious falls, 

At whose soft murmurings so sAveet and low 

Poets have turned their smoothest madrigals, 

To sing to ladies in their banquet-halls. 

'' And when the hot sun with his steadfast heat 

Parches the river god, — whose dusty urn 

Drips miserly, till soon his crystal feet 

Against his pebbly floor wax faint and burn. 

And languid fish, unpoised, grow sick and yeani, — 

Then scoop we hollows in some sandy nook, 

And little channels dig, wherein we turn 

The thread-worn rivulet, that all forsook 

The Naiad- lily, pining for her brook. 

"Wherefore, by thy delight in cool green meads, 

With living sapphires daintily inlaid, — 

In all soft songs of waters and their reeds, — 

And all reflections in a streamlet made. 

Haply of thy own love, that, disarrayed, 

Kills the fair lily with a livelier white, — 

By silver trouts upspringing from green shade, 

And winking stars reduplicate at night, 

Spare us, poor ministers to such delight.'' 



THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 21 

Howbeit his pleading and his gentle looks 

Moved not the spiteful Shade : — Quoth he. " Your taste 

Shoots wide of mine, for I despise the brooks 

And slavish rivulets that run to waste 

In noontide sweats, or, like poor vassals, haste 

To swell the vast dominion of the sea, 

In whose great presence I am held disgraced, 

And neighbored with a king that rivals me 

In ancient might and hoary majesty. 

" Whereas I ruled in chaos, and still kee]3 
The awful secrets of that ancient dearth, 
Before the briny fountains of the deep 
Brimmed up the hollow cavities of earth ; 
I saw each trickling Sea- God at his birth, 
Each pearly Naiad with her oozy locks, 
And infant Titans of enormous girth, 
Whose huge young feet yet stumbled on the rocks 
Stunning the early Avorld with frequent shocks. 

" Where now is Titan, with his cumbrous brood. 

That scared the world? — By this sharp scythe they fell, 

And half the sky was curdled with their blood : 

So have all primal giants sighed farewell. 

No Wardens now by sedgy fountains dwell, 

Nor pearly Naiads. All their days are done 

That strove with Time, untimely, to excel ; 

Wherefore I razed their progenies, and none 

But my great shadow intercepts the sun ! " 

Then saith the timid Fay, "0, mighty Time ! 
Well hast thou wrought the cruel Titans' fall, 
For they Avere stained with many a bloody crime : 
Gre/it giants work great wrongs,-— but we are small, 



22 THE I'LEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 

For Love goes lowly ; — but Oppression 's tall, 
And with surpassing strides goes foremost still 
Where Love indeed can hardly reach at all ; 
Like a poor dwarf o'erburthened with good will, 
That labors to efface the tracks of ill. 

" Man even strives with Man, but we eschew 
The guilty feud, and all fierce strifes abhor ; 
Nay, we are gentle as sweet heaven's dew, 
Beside the red and horrid drops of war, 
Weeping the cruel hates men battle for, 
Which worldly bosoms nourish in our spite . 
For in the gentle breast we ne'er withdraw, 
But only wlien all love hath taken flight. 
And youth's Avarm gracious heart is hardened quite. 

" So are our gentle natures intertwined 
With sweet humanities, and closely knit 
In kindly sympathy with human kind. 
Witness how we befriend, with elfin-wit. 
All hopeless maids and lovers. — nor omit 
Magical succors unto hearts forlorn : — 
We charm man's life, and do not perish it ; — 
So judge us by the helps we showed this morn 
To one who held his wretched days in scorn. 

" 'T was nigh sweet Am well ; — for the Queen had tasked 

Our skill to-day amidst the silver Lea, 

Whereon the noontide sun had not yet basked ; 

Wherefore some patient man we thought to see, 

Planted in moss-grown rushes to the knee, 

Beside the cloudy margin cold and dim ; — 

Howbeit no patient fisherman was he 

That cast his sudden shadow from the brim, 

Making us leave our toils to gaze on him. 



THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 28 

'' His face was ashj pale, and leaden care 
Had sunk the levelled arches of his brow, 
Once bridges for his joyous thoughts to fare 
Over those melancholy springs and slow, 
That from his piteous eyes began to flow. 
And fell anon into the chilly stream ; 
Which, as his mimicked image showed below, 
Wrinkled his face with many a needless seam, 
Making grief sadder in its own esteem. 

"And, lo ! upon the air we saw him stretch 
His passionate arms ; and, in a wayward strain, 
He 'gan to elegize that fellow-wretch 
That with mute gestures answered him again, 
Saying, ' Poor slave, how long wilt thou remain 
Life's sad weak captive in a prison strong, 
Hoping with tears to rust away thy chain. 
In bitter servitude to worldly wrong ? — 
Thou wearest that mortal livery too long ! ' 

" This, with mere spleenful speeches and some tears, 
When he had spent upon the imaged wave, 
Speedily I convened my elfin peers 
Under the lily-cups, that we might save 
This woful mortal from a wilful grave 
By shrewd diversions of his mind's regret, 
Seeing he was mere Melancholy's slave. 
That sank wherever a dark cloud he met, 
And straight was tangled in her secret net. 

•' Therefore, as still he watched the water's flow, 
Daintily we transformed, and with bright fins 
Came glancing through the gloom ; some from below 
Rose like dim fancies when a dream begins, 



24 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 

Snatcliing the light upon their purple skins ; 
Then under the broad leaves made slow retire : 
One like a golden galley bravely wins 
Its radiant course, — another glows like fire, — 
Making that wayward man our pranks admire. 

" And so he banished thought, and quite forgot 

All contemplation of that wretched face ; 

And so we wiled him from that lonely spot 

Along the river's brink ; till, by Heaven's grace, 

He met a gentle haunter of the place, 

Full of sweet wisdom gathered from the brooks, 

Who there discussed his melancholy case 

With wholesome texts learned from kind Nature's books' 

Meanwhile he newly trimmed his lines and hooks." 

Herewith the Fairy ceased. Quoth Ariel now — 
'' Let me remember how I saved a man, 
Whose fatal noose was fastened on a bough, 
Intended to abridge his sad life's span ; 
For haply I was by when he began 
His stern soliloquy in life's dispraise. 
And overheard his melancholy plan. 
How he had made a vow to end his days, 
And therefore followed him in all his ways, 

*' Through brake and tangled copse, for much he loathed 

All populous haunts, and roamed in forests rude, 

To hide himself from man. But I had clothed 

My delicate limbs with plumes, and still pursued, 

Where only foxes and v>'ild cats intrude. 

Till we were come beside an ancient tree 

Late blasted by a storm. Here he renewed 

His loud complaints, — choosing that spot to be 

The scene of his last horrid tragedy. 



THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 25 

" It was a wild and melancholy glen, 
Made gloomy by tall firs and cypress dark, 
Whose roots, like any bones of buried men, 
Pushed through the rotten sod for fear's remark ; 
A hundred horrid stems, jagged and stark, 
Wrestled with crooked arms in hideous fray. 
Besides sleek ashes with their dappled bark. 
Like crafty serpents climbing for a prey. 
With many blasted oaks moss-grown and gray. 

" But here upon this final desperate clause 

Suddenly I pronounced so sweet a strain. 

Like a panged nightingale it made him pause, 

Till half the frenzy of his grief was slain. 

The sad remainder oozing from his brain 

In timely ecstasies of healmg tears. 

Which through his ardent eyes began to drain , — 

Meanwhile the deadly fates unclosed their shears : — 

So pity me and all my fated peers ! " 

Thus Ariel ended, and was some time hushed : 

When with the hoary shape a fresh tongue pleads, 

And red as rose the gentle Fairy blushed 

To read the record of her own good deeds : — 

"It chanced," quoth she, " in seeking through the mcitds 

For honeyed cowslips, sweetest in the morn. 

Whilst yet the buds were hung with dewy beads. 

And Echo answered to the huntsman's horn, 

We found a babe left in the swarths forlorn. 

"A little, sorrowful, deserted thing. 
Begot of love, and yet no love begetting ; 
Guiltless of shame, and yet for shame to wring ; 
A.nd too soon banished from a mother" s petting, 



THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 

To churlish nurture and the wide world's frettii^g, 
For alien pity and unnatural care ; — 
Alas ! to see hoAV the cold dew kept wetting 
His childish coats, and dabbled all his hair, 
Like gossamers across his forehead fair. 

" His prettj pouting mouth, witless of speech, 
Lay half-way open like a rose-lipped shell ; 
And his young cheek was softer than a peach. 
Whereon his tears, for roundness, could not dwell, 
But quickly rolled themselves to pearls, and fell; 
Some on the grass, and some against his hand, 
Or haply wandered to the dimpled well, 
Which love beside his mouth had sweetly planned, 
Yet not for tears, but mirth and smilings bland. 

" Pity it was to see those frequent tears 
Falling regardless from his friendless eyes ; 
There was such beauty in those twin blue spheres, 
As any mother's heart might leap to prize ; 
Blue were they, like the zenith of the skies 
Softened betwixt two clouds, both clear and mild ; -> 
Just touched with thought, and yet not over wise, 
They showed the gentle spirit of a child. 
Not yet by care or any craft defded. 

" Pity it was to see the ardent sun 

Scorching his helpless limbs — it shone so warm ; 

For kindly shade or shelter he had none, 

Nor mother's gentle breast, come fair or storm. 

Meanwhile I bade my pitying mates transform 

Like grasshoppers, and then, with shrilly cries, 

All round the infant noisily we swarm, 

Haply some passing rustic to advise — 

Whilsi providential Heaven our care espies, 



THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 27 

" Ajid sends full soon a tender-hearted hind, 
Who, wondering at our loud unusual note, 
Strays curiously aside, and so doth find 
The orphan child laid in the grass remote, 
And laps the foundling in his russet coat, 
Who thence was nurtured in his kindly cot : — 
But how he prospered let proud London quote. 
How wise, how rich, and how renowned he got, 
And chief of all her citizens, I wot. 

*' Witness his goodly vessels on the Thames, 

Whose holds were fraught with costly merchandise,- - 

Jewels from Ind, and pearls for courtly dames, 

And gorgeous silks that Samarcand supplies : 

Witness that Royal Bourse he bade arise, 

The mart of merchants from the East and West ; 

Whose slender summit, pointing to the skies, 

Still bears, in token of his grateful breast. 

The tender grasshopper, his chosen crest — 

'' The tender grasshopper, his chosen crest. 

That all the sumxiner, with a tuneful wing. 

Makes merry chirpings in its grassy nest. 

Inspirited with dew to leap and sing : — 

So let us also live, eternal King ! 

Partakers of the green and pleasant earth ; — 

Pitj it is to slay the meanest thing, 

That, like a mote, shines in the smile of mirth ■ 

Enough there is of joy's decrease and dearth ! 

" Enough of pleasure, and delight, and beauty, 
Perished and gone, and hasting to decay ; — 
Enough to sadden even thee, whose duty 
Or spite it is to havoc and to slay : 



28 IHE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 

Too many a lovely race, razed quite away, 

Hath left large gaps in life and human loving : — 

Here then begin thy cruel war to stay, 

And spare fresh sighs, and tears, and groans, reproving • 

Thy desolating hand for our removing." 

Now here I heard a shrill and sudden cry, 
And looking up, I saw the antic Puck 
Grappling with Time, who clutched him like a flj, 
Victim of his own sport, — the jester's luck ! 
He, whilst his fellows grieved, poor wight, had stuck 
His freakish gauds upon the Ancient's brow, 
And now liis ear, and now his beard, would pluck ; 
Whereas the angry churl had snatched him now, 
Crying, '' Thou impish mischief, who art thou 7"' 

'' Alas ! " quoth Puck, " a little random elf, 
Born in the sport of nature, like a weed, 
For simple sweet enjoyment o^ myself, 
But for no other purpose, worth, or need; 
And yet withal of a most happy breed ; 
And there is Robin Goodfellow besides. 
My partner dear in m.any a prankish deed 
To make dame Laughter hold her jolly sides, 
Like merry mummers twain on holy tides. 

'' 'T is we that bob the angler's idle cork. 

Till even the patient man breathes half a curse ; 

"We steal the morsel from the gossip's fork. 

And curdling looks with secret straws disperse, 

Or stop the sneezing chanter at mid verse : 

And when an infant's beauty prospers ill, 

We change, some mothers say, the child at nurse ; 

But any graver purpose to fulfil, 

We have not wit enougji, and scaice the will. 



thjs plea of the midsummer fairies. 2& 

" We never let the canker melancholy 

To gather on our faces like a rust, 

But gloss our features with some change of folly. 

Taking life's fabled miseries on trust, 

But only sorrowing when sorrow must : 

We ruminate no sage's solemn cud. 

But OAvn ourselves a pinch of lively dust 

To frisk upon a wind, — whereas the flood 

Of tears would turn us into heavy mud. 

'' Beshrew those sad interpreters of nature, 

Who gloze her lively universal law, 

As if she had not formed our cheerful feature 

To be so tickled with the slightest straw ! 

So let them vex their mumping mouths, and draw 

The corners downward, like a watery moon, 

And deal in gusty sighs and rainy flaw - 

We will not woo foul weather all too soon, 

Or nurse November on the lap of June. 

" For ours are winging sprites, like any bird 
That shun all stagnant settlements of grief ; 
And even in our rest our hearts are stirred, 
Like insects settled on a dancing leaf : 
This is our small philosophy in brief, 
Which thus to teach hath set me all agape : 
But dost thou relish it 7 0, hoary chief ! 
Unclasp thy crooked fingers from my nape, 
And I will show thee many a pleasant scrape." 

Then Saturn thus : — shaking his crooked blade 
O'erhead, which made aloft a lightning flash 
In all the fairies' eyes, dismally frayed ! 
His ensuinoj voice came like the thunder crash — 



30 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER DAIRIES. 

Meanwhile the bolt shatters some pine or ash — 
" Thoa feeble, wanton, foolish, fickle thing ! 
Whom naught can frighten, sadden, or abash, — 
To hope mj solemn countenance to wring 
To idiot smiles ! — but I will prune thj wing ! 

•' Lo ! this most awful handle of mj scythe 
Stood once a Maj-pole, with a flowery crown, 
Which rustics danced around, and maidens blitlie, 
To wanton pipings ; — but I plucked it down. 
And robed the May Queen in a church-yard gown, 
Turning her buds to rosemary and rue ; 
And all their merry minstrelsy did drown, 
And laid each lusty leaper in the dew ; — 
So thou shalt fare — and every jovial crew ! " 

Here he lets go the struggling imp, to clutch 
His mortal engine with each grisly hand, 
Which frights the elfin progeny so much, 
They huddle in a heap, and trembling stand 
All round Titania, like the queen bee's band, 
With sighs and tears and very shrieks of woe ! — 
Meanwhile, some moving argument I planned, 
To make the stern Shade merciful, — when, lo ! 
He drops his fatal scythe without a blow ! 

For, just at need, a timely Apparition 

Steps in between, to bear the awful brunt ; 

Making him change his horrible position, 

To marvel at this comer, brave and blunt, 

That dares Time's irresistible aifront. 

Whose strokes have scarred even the gods of old ; — 

Whereas this seemed a mortal, at mere hunt 

For coneys, lighted by the moonshine cold, 

Or stalker of stray deer, stealthy and bold. 



i 



THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 31 

Who, turning to the small assembled ftiys, 
Doifs to the lilj queen his courteous cap, 
And holds her beauty for a while in gaze, 
With bright eyes kindling at this pleasant hap ; 
And thence upon the fair moon's silver map, 
As if in question of this magic chance, 
Laid like a dream upon {he green earth's lap ; 
And then upon old Saturn turns askance. 
Exclaiming, with a glad and kindly glance : — 

"0, these be Fancy's revellers by night ! 
Stealthy companions of the downy moth — 
Diana's motes, that flit in her pale light, 
Shunners of sunbeams in diurnal sloth ; — 
These be the feasters on night's silver cloth, — 
The gnat with shrilly trump is their convener, 
Forth from their flowery chambers, nothing loth, 
With lulling tunes to charm the air serener, 
Or dance upon the grass to make it greener. 

" These be the pretty genii of the flowers, 

Daintily fed with honey and pure dew — 

Midsummer's phantoms in her dreaming hours, 

King Oberon, and all his merry crew, 

The darling puppets of romance's view ; 

Fairies, and sprites, and goblin elves, we call them 

Famous for patronage of lovers true : — 

"No harm they act, neither shall harm befall them, 

So do not thus with crabbed frowns appall them." 

0, what a cry was Saturn's then ! — it made 
The fairies quake. " What care I for their pranks, 
However they may lovers choose to aid, 
Or dance their roundelays on flowery banks ? — 



32 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 

Long must they dance before they earn my thanks,— 
So step aside, to some far safer spot, 
Whilst with my hungry scythe I mow their ranks, 
And leave them in the sun, like weeds, to rot, 
And with the next day's sun to be forgot.'' 

Anon, he raised afresh his weapon keen ; 
But still the gracious Shade disarmed his aim, 
Stepping with brave alacrity between. 
And made his sere arm powerless and tame. 
His be perpetual glory, for the shame 
Of hoary Saturn in that grand defeat ! — 
But I must tell, how here Titania came 
With all her kneeling lieges, to entreat 
His kindly succor, in sad tones, but sweet. 

Saying, " Thou seest a wretched queen before thee, 

The fading power of a failing land. 

Who for her kingdom kneeleth to implore thee, 

Now menaced by this tyrant's spoiling hand ; 

No one but thee can hopefully withstand 

That crooked blade, he longeth so to lift. 

I pray thee blind him with his own vile sand, 

Which only times all ruins by its drift. 

Or prune his eagle Avings that are so swift. 

" Or take him by that sole and grizzled tuft, 
That hangs upon his bald and barren crown ; 
And we will sing to see him so rebuffed. 
And lend our little mights to pull him down, 
And make brave sport of his malicious frown, 
For all his boastful mockery o'er men. 
For thou wast born, I know, for this renown, 
By my most magical and inward ken, 
That readeth even at Fate's forestalling pen. 



THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES- 33 

" Nay, bj the golden lustre of thine eye, 
And by thy brow's most fair and ample span, 
Thought's glorious palace, framed for fancies hio-h, 
And by thy cheek thus passionately wan, 
I know the signs of an immortal man, — 
Nature's chief darling, an illustrious mate. 
Destined to foil old Death's oblivious plan. 
And shine untarnished by the fogs of Fate. 
Time's famous rival till the final date ! 

"0, shield us, then, from this usurping Time, 
And we will visit thee in moonlight dreams ; 
And teach thee tunes, to wed unto thy rhyme, 
And dance about thee in all midnio-ht gleams. 
Giving thee glimpses of our magic schemes. 
Such as no mortal's eye hath ever seen ; 
And, for thy love to us in our extremes, 
Will ever keep thy chaplet fresh and green. 
Such as no poet's wreath hath ever been ! 

'' And we '11 distil thee aromatic dews, 

To charm thy sense, when there shall be no flowers : 

And flavored syrups in thy drinks infuse. 

And teach the nio-htino-ale to haunt thv bowers, 

And with our games divert thy weariest hours, 

With all that elfin wits can e'er devise. 

And, this churl dead, there'll be no hasting hours 

To rob thee of thy joys, as now joy flies : " — 

Here she was stopped by Saturn's furious cries. 

Whom, therefore, the kind Shade rebukes anew, 
Saying, " Thou haggard Sin, go forth, and scoop 
Thj hollow coffin in some church-yard yew, 
Or make the autumnal flowers turn pale, and droop ; 

VOL. II. 3 



34 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 

Or fell the bearded corn, till gleaners stoop 
Under fat sheaves, — or blast the piny grove ; — 
But here thou shalt not harm this prettj group, 
Whose lives are not so frail and feebly wove, 
But leased on Nature's loveliness and love. 

" 'T is these that free the small entangled fly, 
Caught in the venomed spider's crafty snare ; — 
These be the petty surgeons that apply 
The healing balsams to the wounded hare, 
Bedded in bloody fern, no creature's care ! — 
These be providers for the orphan brood, 
Whose tender mother hath been slain in air, 
Quitting with gaping bill her darlings' food. 
Hard by the verge of her domestic wood. 

" 'T is these befriend the timid trembling stag, 
When, with a bursting heart beset with fears, 
He feels his saving speed begin to flag ; 
For then they quench the fatal taint with tears, 
And prompt fresh shifts in his alarumed ears, 
So piteously they view all bloody morts ; 
Or if the gunner, with his arm, appears, 
Like lioisy pyes and jays, with harsh reports, 
They warn the wild fowl of his deadly sports. 

" For these are kindly ministers of nature. 
To soothe all covert hurts and dumb distress ; 
Pretty they be, and very small of stature, — 
For mercy still consorts with littleness ; — 
Wherefore the sum of good is still the less, 
And mischief grossest in this world of wrong ; — 
So do these charitable dwarfs redress 
The ten-fold ravages of giants strong, 
To whom great malice and great might belong. 



THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 35 

'' Likewise to them are Po(;ts much beholden 
For secret favors in the mi(hiight glooms ; 
Brave Spenser quaffed out of their goblets golden, 
And saw their tables spread of prompt mushrooms, 
And heard their horns of honeysuckle blooms 
Sounding upon the air most soothing soft. 
Like humming bees busy about tlie brooms, — 
And glanced this fair queen's vfitchery full oft. 
And in her magic wain soared far aloft. 

"Nay, I myself, though mortal, once was nursed 

By fairy gossips, friendly at my birth, 

And in my childish ear glib Mab rehearsed 

Her breezy travels round our planet's girth, 

Telling me wonders of the moon and earth ; 

My gramarye at her grave lap I conned, 

Where Puck hath been convened to make me mirth ; 

I have had from Queen Titania tokens fond, 

And toyed with Oberon's permitted Avand. 

^' With figs and plums and Persian dates they fed me, 
And delicate cates after my sunset meal, 
And took me by my childish hand, and led me 
By craggy rocks crested with keeps of steel, 
Whose awful bases deep dark woods conceal, 
Staining some dead lake v/ith their verdant dyes : 
And when the West sparkled at Phoebus' wheel, 
With fairy euphrasy they purged mine eyes, 
To let me see their cities in the skies. 

' "T was they first schooled my young imagination 
To take its flights like any new-fledged bird, 
And showed the span of winged meditation 
Stretched wider than things grossly seen or heard. 



i3t) THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 

With sweet swift Ariel how I soared and stirred 

The fragrant blooms of spiritual bowers ! 

'T was they endeared what I have still preferred, 

Nature" s blest attributes and balmj powers, 

Her hills and vales and brooks, sweet birds and flowers ! 

'' Wherefore with all true loyalty and duty 

Will I regard them in my honoring rhyme, 

With love for love, and homages to beauty, 

And magic thoughts gathered in night" s cool clime, 

With studious verse trancing the dragon Time, 

Strong as old Merlin's necromantic spells ; 

So these dear monarchs of the summer's prime 

Shall live unstartled by his dreadful yells, 

Till shrill larks warn them to their flowery cells." 

Look how a poisoned man turns livid black, 
Drugged with a cup of deadly hellebore. 
That sets his horrid features all at rack, — 
So seemed these words into the ear to pour 
Of ghastly Saturn, answering with a roar 
Of mortal pain and spite and utmost rage, 
Wherewith his grisly arm he raised once more, 
And bade the clustered sinews all eno-age, 
As if at one fell stroke to wreck an age. 

Whereas the blade flashed on the dinted ground, 
Down through his steadfast foe, yet made no scar 
On that immortal Shade, or death-like wound ; 
But Time was long benumbed, and stood ajar, 
And then with baffled rage took flight afar. 
To weep his hurt in some Cimmerian gloom. 
Or meaner fames (like mme) to mock and mar, 
Or sharp his scythe for royal strokes of doom. 
Whetting its edge on some old Caesar's tomb. 



THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 37 

Howbeit he vanished in the forest shade, 
Distantly heard as if some grumbling pard, 
And, like Narcissus, to a sound decayed ; — 
Meanwhile the fays clustered the gracious Bard, 
The darlino; centre of their dear regard • 
Besides of sundry dances on the green, 
Never was mortal man so brightly starred, 
Or won such pretty homages, I ween. 
'' Nod to him, Elves ! " cries the melodious queen. 

" Nod to him, Elves, and flutter round about him, 
And quite enclose him with your pretty crowd, 
And touch him lovingly, for that, without him, 
The silk-worm noAV had spun our dreary shroud ,• ■^- 
But he hath all dispersed death's tearful cloud, 
And Time's dread e^gj scared quite away : 
Bow to him, then, as though to me ye bowed, 
And his dear wishes prosper and obey 
Wherever love and wit can find a way ! 



u ? 



Noint him with fairy dews of magic savors, 
Shaken from orient buds still pearly wet, 
Roses and spicy pinks, — and, of all favors, 
Plant in his walks the purple violet. 
And meadow-sweet under the hedges set. 
To mingle breaths with dainty eglantine 
And honeysuckles sweet, — nor yet forget 
Some pastoral flowery chaplets to entwine, 
To vie the thoughts about his brow benign 

" Let no wild things astonish him or fear him, 
But tell them all how mild he is of heart. 
Till e'en the timid hares go frankly near him, 
And eke the dappled does, yet never start ; 



] THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 

Nor shall their fawns into the thickets dart, 

Nor wrens forsake their nests among the leaves, 

Nor speckled thrushes flutter far apart ; — 

But bid the sacred swallow haunt his eaves, 

To guard his roof from lightning and from thieves. 

" Or when he goes the nimble squirrel's visitor, 
Let the brown hermit bring his hoarded nuts, 
For, tell him, this is Nature's kind Inquisitor.— 
Though man keeps cautious doors that conscience shuts, 
For conscious wrong all curious quest rebuts, — 
Nor yet shall bees uncase their jealous stings, 
However he may watch their straw-built huts ; — 
So let him learn the crafts of all small things. 
Which he will hint most aptly when he sings." 

Here she leaves off, and with a graceful hand 
Waves thrice three splendid circles round his head ; 
Which, though deserted by the radiant wand, 
Wears still the glory which her waving shed. 
Such as erst crowned the old Apostle's head ; 
To show the thoughts there harbored were divine, 
And on immortal contemplations fed : — 
Goodly it was to see that glory shine 
Around a brow so lofty and benign ! — 

Goodly it was to see the elfin brood 
Contend for kisses of his gentle hand, 
That had their mortal enemy withstood. 
And stayed their lives, fast ebbing with the sand. 
Long while this strife engaged the pretty band ; 
But now bold Chanticleer, from farm to farm. 
Challenged the dawn creeping o'er eastern land, 
And well the fairies knew that shrill alarm, 
Which sounds the knell of every elfish charm. 



THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES, 39 

And soon the rolling mist, that 'gan arise 
From plashy mead and undiscovered stream, 
EaTth's morning incense to the earlj skies, 
Crept o'er the failing landscape of my dream. 
Soon faded then the Phantom of mj theme — 
A shapeless shade, that fxncj disavowed. 
And shrank to nothing in the mist extreme. 
Then flew Titania, — and her little crowd, 
Like flocking linnets, vanished in a cloud. 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 



NOTE. 



The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies. 
This poem was first published in a volume in 1827, shortly after 
the appearance of Whims and Oddities and the National Tales. The 
versatility of talent evinced by these various productions was a sub- 
ject of comment among the critics, one of the most distinguished of 
whom thus remarks upon their author: "He now comes before us 
as a poet, in the most abstract sense of the word ; and we should 
suppose, in reading his volume, that he had been all his life dreaming 
of * fancies fond, and shadows numberless,' and that, for the sake of 
indulging in these toys of the brain, he had spurned at every thing 
which human beings and ordinary society were capable of presenting 
to his view. We never saw a more confirmed case of poetical mania." 



LOYE AND LUNACY. 



The Moon — who does not love the silver moon, 
In all her fantasies and all her phases ? 

Whether full-orbed in the nocturnal noon, 
Shining in all the dewdrops on the daisies, 
To light the tripping Fairies in their mazes, 

While stars are winking at the pranks of Puck ; 
Or huge and red, as on brown sheaves che gazes ; 

Or new and thin when coin is turned for luck ; — 

Who will not say that Dian is a Duck ? 

But, oh ! how tender, beautiful and sweet, 

When in her silent round, serene, and clear, 
By assignation loving fancies meet, 

To recompense the pangs of absence drear ! 

So Ellen, dreaming of Lorenzo, dear. 
But distant from the city mapped by Mogg, 

Still saw his image in that silver sphere, 
Plain as the Man with lantern, bush, and dog, 
That used to set our ancestors a-gog. 

And so she told him in a pretty letter, 
That came to hand exactly as Saint Meg's 

Was striking ten — eleven had been better; 
For then he might have eaten six more eggs, 
Arid both of the bedevilled turkey-legs, 



44 LOVE AND LUNACY. 

With relishes from East, West, North, and South, 

Draining, beside, the teapot to the dregs. 
Whereas a man whose heart is in his mouth, 
Is rather spoilt for hunger and for drouth. 

And so the kidneys, broiling hot, were wasted ; 

The brawn — it never entered in his thought ; 
The grated Parmesan remained untasted ; 

The potted shrimps were left as they were bought, 

The capelings stood as merely good for naught. 
The German sausage did not tempt him better, 

Whilst Juno, licking her poor lips was taught 
There's neither bone nor skin about a letter, 
Gristle, nor scalp, that one can give a setter. 

Heaven bless the man who first devised a mail ! 

Heaven bless that public pile which stands concealing 
The Goldsmiths' front with such a solid veil ! 

Heaven bless the Master, and Sir Francis Freeling, 

The drags, the nags, the leading or the wheeling, 
The whips, the guards, the horns, the coats of scarlet. 

The boxes, bags, those evening bells a-pealing ! 
Heaven bless, in short, each posting thing, and varlet, 
That helps a Werter to a sigh from Charlotte. 

So felt Lorenzo as he oped the sheet, 

Where, first, the darling signature he kissed 

And then, recurring to its contents sweet 
With thirsty eyes, a phrase 1 must enlist, 
He gulped the words, to hasten to their gist ; 

In mortal ecstasy his soul was bound — 

When, lo ! with features all at once a-twist, 

He gave a whistle, wild enough in sound 

To summon Faustus's Infernal Hound ! 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 45 

Alas ! what little miffs and tiffs in love, 

A snubbish word, or pouting look mistaken, 
Will loosen screws with sweethearts hand and glove, 

Oh ! love, rock firm when chimnej-pots were shaken, 

A pettish breath will into huffs awaken, 
To spit like hump-backed cats, and snarling Towzers ! 

Till hearts are wrecked and foundered, and forsaken, 
A3 ships go to Old Davy, Lord knows how, sirs, 
While heaven is blue enough for Dutchmen's trowsers ! 

" The moon's at full, love, and I think of you" — 

Who would have thought that such a kind P.S. 
Could make a man turn white, then red, then blue, 

Then black, and knit his eyebrows and compress 

His teeth, as if about to effervesce 
Like certain people when they lose at whist ! 

So looked the chafed Lorenzo, nevertheless. 
And, in a trice, the paper he had kissed 
Was crumpled like a snowball in his fist ! 

Ah ! had he been less versed in scientifics — 
More ignorant, in short, of what is what — 

He ne'er had flared up in such calorifics ; 
But he would seek societies, and trot 
To Clubs — Mechanics' Listitutes — and got 

With Birkbeck — Bartley— Combe -George Robins— Rennie, 
And other lecturing men. And had he not 

That work, of weekly parts, which sells so many, 

The Copper-bottomed Magazine — or "Penny?" 

But, of all learned pools whereon, or in, 

Men dive like dabchicks, or like swallows skim. 

Some hardly damped, some wetted to the skin. 

Some drowned like pigs when they attempt to SFim, 



46 LOVE AND LUNACY. 

Astronomy was most Lorenzo's wliim, 
('Tis studied by a Prince among the Burmans) ; 

He loved those heavenly bodies which, the Hymn 
Of Addison declares, preach solemn sermons, 
While waltzing on their pivots like young Germans. 

Night after night, with telescope in hand. 
Supposing that the night was fair and clear, 

Aloft, on the house-top, he took his stand, 

Till he obtained to know each twinkling sphere 
Better, I doubt, tlian Milton's " Starry Vere;" 

Thus, reading through poor Ellen's fond epistle, 
He soon espied the flaw — the lapse so sheer 

That made him raise his hair in such a bristle, 

And like the Boatswain of the Storm-Ship, whistle. 

"The moon 's at full, love, and I think of thee," — 

'• Indeed ! I'm very much her humble debtor, 
But not the moon-calf she would have me be, 

Zounds ! does she fancy that I know no better?'' 

Herewith, at either corner of the letter 
He gave a most ferocious, rending, pull ; — 

" woman ! woman ! that no vows can fetter, 
A moon to stay for three weeks at tlie full ! 
By Jove ; a very pretty cock-and-])ull ! 
" The moon at full ! 't was very finely reckoned ! 

Why so she wrote me word upon the first. 
The twelfth, and now upon the twenty-second — • 

Full ! — yes — it must be full enough to burst ! 

But let her go — of all vile jilts the worst" — 
Here v/ith his thumbs he gave contemptuous snaps. 

Anon he blubbered like a child that 's nursed, 
And then he hit the table frightful raps, 
And stamped till he had broken both his straps. 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 47 

'' The moon 's at full — and I am in her thougAt — 

No doubt : I do believe it in my soul !" 
Here he threw up his head and gave a snort 

Like a young horse first harnessed to a pole; 

'' The moon is full — ay, so is this d — d bowl !" 
And, grinning like the sourest of curmudgeons, 

Globe — -svater — fishes — he dashed down the whole, 
Strewing the carpet with the gasping gudgeons ; 
Men do the strangest things in such love-dudgeons. 

"I fill her thoughts — her memory's vice gerent? 

No, no — some paltry puppy — three weeks old — 
And round as Nerval's shield*' — thus incoherent 

His fancies grew as he went on to scold ; 

So stormy waves are into breakers rolled. 
Worked up at last to mere chaotic wroth — 

This — that — heads — tails — thoughts j umbled uncontrol led 
As onions, turnips, meat, in boiling broth, 
By turns bob up, and splutter in the froth. 

" Fool that I was to let a baby fice — 

A full one — like a hunter's — round and red — 
Ass that I am, to give her more a place 

Within this heart" — and here he struck his head. 

" 'Sdeath are the almanac-compilers dead? 
But no — 'tis all an artifice — a trick. 

Some newer face — some dandy underbred — 
Well — be it so — of all the sex I'm sick !" 
Here Juno wondered why she got a kick. 

" ' The moon is full' — where "s her infernal scrawl? 

' And you are in my thought : that silver ray 
Will ever your dear image thus recalF — 

My image ? Mine ! She 'd barter it away 



48 LOVE AND LUNACY. 

For Pretty Poll's on an Italian's traj ! 
Three weeks, full weeks — it is too plain — too bad — 

Too gro?3 and palpable ! Oh cursed day ! 
My senses have not crazed — but if they had — 
Such moons would worry a Mad Doctor mad ! 

''Oh Nature ! wherefore did you frame a lip 

So fair for falsehood ? Wherefore have you dressed 

Deceit so angel-like?" With sudden rip 
He tore six new buff buttons from his vest, 
And groped with hand impetuous at his breast, 

As if some flea from Juno's fleecy curls 
Had skipped to batten on a human chest, 

But no — the hand comes forth, and down it hurls 

A lady's miniature beset with pearls. 

Yet long upon the floor it did not tarry, 

Before another outrage could be planned : 
Poor Juno, v^ho had learned to fetch and carry, 

Picked up and brought it to her master's hand, 

Who seized it, and the mimic features scanned ; 
Yet not with the old loving ardent drouth, 

He only saw in that fair face, so bland, 
Look how he would at it, East, West, North, South, 
A moon, a full one, with eyes, nose, and mouth. 

"I'll go to her," — herewith his hat he touched, 

And gave his arm a most heroic brandish ; 
" But no — I'll write" — and here a spoon he clutched, 

And rammed it with such fury in the standish, 

A sable flood, like Niger the outlandish, 
Came rushing forth — Oh Antics and Buffoons ! 

Ye never danced a caper so ran-tan-dish ; 
He jumped, thumped — tore — swore, more than ten dragoons 
At all nights, noons, moons, spoons, and pantaloons ! 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 49 

But soon ashamed, or we;iiy, of such dancing, 
Without a Collinet s or Weipport's band, 

His rampant arms and legs left off their prancing, 
And down he sat again, with pen in hand, 
Not fiddle-headed, or King's pattern grand, 

But one of Bramah's patent Caligraphics ; 

And many a sheet it spoiled before he planned 

A likely letter. Used to pure seraphics, 

Philippics sounded strangely after Sj\pphics. 

Long while he rocked like Yankee in his chair. 

Staring as he would stare the wainscot through, 
And then he thrust his fingers in his hair. 

And set his crest up like a cockatoo ; 

And trampled with his hoofs, a mere Yahoo : 
i.t last, with many a tragic frown and start, 

He penned a billet, very far from doux, 
T was sour, severe — but think of a man's smart 
VYriting Avith lunar caustic on his heart ! 

The letter done and closed, he lit his taper, 
And sealing, as it were, his other mocks. 

He stamped a grave device upon the paper. 
No Cupid toying with his Psyche's locks. 
But some stern head of the old Stoic stocks — 

Then, fiercely striding through the staring streets, 
He dropped the bitter missive in a box. 

Beneath the cakes, and tarts, and sugared treats, 

In Mrs. Smelling's window-full of sweets. 

Soon sped the letter — thanks to modern plans. 
Our English mails run little in the style 

Of those great German wild-beast caravans, 

^i'Z-wagens — though they do not '• go like i/e,"— 

roL. 11. 4 



50 LOVE AND LUNACY. 

But take a good twelve minutes to the mile — 
On Monday morning, just at ten o'clock, 

As Ellen hummed "The Young Maj Moon" the while, 
Her ear was startled by that double knock 
Which thrills the nerves like an electric shock ! 

Her right hand instantly forgot its cunning, 

And down into the street it dropped, or flung, 
Right on the hat and wig of Mr. Gunning, 

The jug that o'er her ten-week-stocks had hung ; 

Then down the stairs by twos and threes she sprung, 
And through the passage like a burglar darted. 

Alas ! how sanguine are the fond and young — 
She little thought, w^hen with the coin she parted, 
She paid a sixpence to be broken-hearted ! 

Too dear at any price — had she but paid 

Nothing and taken discount, it was dear ; 
Yet, worthless as it was, the sweet-lipped maid 

Oft kissed the letter in her brief career 

Between the lower and the upper sphere, 
Where, seated in a study bistre-brown. 

She tried to pierce a mystery as clear 
As that I once saw puzzling a young clown — 
" Reading Made Easy," but turned upside down. 

Yet Ellen, like most misses in the land. 

Had sipped sky blue, through certain of her teens, 

At one of those establishments which stand 

In highways, byways, squares, and village greens; 

'T was called "The Grove," — a name that always mean 

Two poplars stand like sentries at the gate — 
• Each window had its close Venetian screens 

And Holland blind, to keep in a cool state 

The twenty-four Young Ladies of Miss Bata 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 51 

But when the screens were left unclosed by chance 

The blinds not down, as if Miss B. were dead.^ 
Each upper window to a passing glance 

Revealed a little dimity white bed ; 

Each lower one a cropped or curly head ; 
And thrice a week, for soul's and health's economies 

Along the road the twenty-four were led. 
Like coupled hounds, whipped in by two she-dominies 
With faces rather graver than Melpomene's. 

And thus their studies they pursued : — On Sunday, 

Beef, collects, batter, texts from Dr. Price ; 
Mutton, French, pancakes, grammar — of a Monday ; 

Tuesday — hard dumplings, globes, Chapone's Advice ; 

Wednesday — fancy-work, rice-milk (no spice) ; 
Thursday — pork, dancing, currant-bolsters, reading; 

Friday — beef, Mr. Butler, and plain rice ; 
Saturday — scraps, short lessons and short feeding, 
Stocks, back-boards, hash, steel-collars, and good breeding. 

From this repertory of female learning 
Came Ellen once a quarter, always fatter ! 

To gratify the eyes of parents yearning. 
'T.was evident in bolsters, beef, and batter. 
Hard dumplings, and rice-milk, she did not smatter, 

But heartily, as Jenkins says, " demollidge;" 
But as for any learning, not to flatter. 

As often happens when girls leave their college. 

She had done nothing but grow out of knowledge. 

At Long Division sums she had no chance, 

And History was quite as bad a balk ; 
Her French it was too small for Petty France, 

And Priscian suffered in her English talk : 



52 LOVE AND LUNACY. 

Her drawing might be clone with cheese or chalk ; 
As for the globes — the use of the terrestrial 

She knew when she went out to take a walk, 
Or take a ride ; but, touching the celestial, 
Her knowledge hardly soared above the bestial. 

Nothing she learned of Juno, Pallas, Mars ; 

Georgium, for what she knew, might stand for Burgo, 
Sidus, for Master : then, for northern stars, 

The Bear she fancied did in sable fur go, 

The Bull was Farmer Giles's bull, and, ergo, 
The Ram the same that butted at her brother ; 

As for the Twins, she only guessed that Virgo, 
From coming after them, must be their mother ; 
The Scales weighed soap, tea, figs, like any other. 

As ignorant as donkeys in Gallicia, 

She thought that Saturn, with his Belt, was but 
A private, may be, in the Kent Militia ; 

That Charles's Wain would stick in a deep rut, 

That Venus was a real West End slut — 
Oh, gods and goddesses of Greek Theogony ! 

That Berenice's Hair would curl and cut. 
That Cassiopeia's Chair was good Mahogany, 
Nicely French-polished — such was her cosmogony ! • 

Judge, then, how puzzled by the scientifics 

Lorenzo's letter came now to dispense; 
A lizard, crawling over hieroglyphics. 

Knows quite as much of their Egyptian sense; 

A sort of London fog, opaque and dense. 
Hung over verbs, nouns, genitives, and datives. 

In vain she pored and pored, with eyes intense, 
As well is known to oyster-operatives. 
Mere looking at the shells won't open natives. 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 53 

Yet mixed with the hard words, so called, she found 

Some easy ones that gave her heart the staggers ; 
Words giving tongue against her, like a hound 

At picking out a fault — words speaking dao-o-ers. 

The very letters seemed, in hostile swaggers, 
To lash their tails, but not as horses do. 

Nor like the tails of spaniels, gentle wuggers, 
But like a lion's, ere he tears in two 
A black, to see if he is black all through. 

With open mouth, and eyeballs at full stretch, 
She gazed upon the paper sad and sorry, 

No sound — no stir — quite petrified, poor wretch ! 
As when Apollo, in old allegory, 
Down-stooping like a falcon, made his quarry 

Of Niobe, just turned to Purbeck stone ; 
In fact, since Cupid got into r^ vrorry, 

Judge if a suing lover, let alone 

A lawyer, ever wrote in such a tone. 

" Ellen, I will no longer call you mine, 

That time is past, and ne'er can come again ; 

However other lights undimmed may shine. 
And undiminishing, one truth is plain. 
Which I, alas I have learned — that love can wane. 

The dream is passed away, the veil is rent, 
Your heart was not intended for my reign; 

A sphere so full, I feel, was never meant 

With one poor man in it to be content. 

'' It must, no doubt, l)e pleasant beyond measure, 
To wander underneath the Avhispering bough 

With Dian, a perpetual round of pleasure. 
Nay, fear not — I absolve of every vow — 



,')4 LOVE AND LUNACY. 

Use — use your own celestial pleasure now, 
Your apogee and perigee arrange. 

Herscliel might aptly stare and wonder how, 
To me that constant disk has nothing strange — 
A^ counterfeit is someting hard to change. 

'' Oh Ellen ! I once little thought to write 
Such words unto you, with so hard a pen ; 

Yet outraged love will change its nature quite, 
4.nd turn like tiger hunted to its den — 
How Falsehood trips in her deceits on men ! 

^nd stands abashed, discovered, and forlorn! 
Had it been only cusped — but gibbous — then 

It had gone down — but Faith drew back in scorn, 

{md would not swallow it — without a horn ! 

'' I am in occultation — that is plain : 

My culmination's past — that 's quite as clear. 
put think not I will suiFer your disdain 

To hang a lunar rainbow on a tear. 

Whate'er my pangs, they shall be buried here; 
No murmur — not a sigh — shall thence exhale : 

Smile on — and for your own peculiar sphere 
Choose some eccentric path — you can not fail, 
A-nd pray stick on a most portentous tail ! 

" Farewell ! I hope you are in health and gay; 

For me, I never felt so well and merry — 
As for the bran-new idol of the day, 

Monkey or man, I am mdifferent — very ! 

Nor even will ask who is the Happy Jerry; 
My jealousy is dead, or gone to sleep, 

But let me hint that you will want a wherry, 
Three weeks spring-tide, and not a chance of neap, 
Your parlors will be flooded six feet deep ! 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 55 

" Oh Ellen ! how delicious was that light 

Wherein our plighted shadows used to blend, 
Meanwhile the melancholy bird of night — 

No more of that — the lover 's at an end. 

Yet if I ma,y advise you, as a friend, 
Before you next pen sentiments so fond. 

Study your cycles — I would recommend 
Our Airy — and let South be duly conned, 
And take a dip, I beg, in the great Pond. 

" Farewell asrain ! it is farewell for ever ! 

CD 

Before your lamp of night be lit up thrice, 
I shall be sailing, haply, for SAvan River, 

Jamaica, or the Indian land of rice, 

Or Boothia Felix — happy clime of ice ! 
For Trebizond, or distant Scanderoon, 

Ceylon, or Java redolent of spice. 
Or settling, neighbor of the Cape baboon, 
Or roaming o'er — The IMoiiutains of the Moon ! 

' ' What matters where ? my world no longer owns 

That dear meridian spot from which I dated 
Degrees of distance, hemispheres, and zones, 

A globe all blank and barren and belated. 

What matters where my future life be fated ? 
With Lapland hordes, or Koords or Afric peasant, 

A squatter in the western woods located. 
What matters where ? My bias, at the present, 
Leans to the country tliat reveres the Crescent ! 

" Farewell ! and if for ever, fare thee well ! 

As wrote another of my fellow-martyrs : 
I ask no sexton for his passing-bell, 

I do not ask your tear-drops to be starters, 



56 LOVE AND LUNACY. 

However I may die, transfixed bj Tartars, 
By Cobras poisoned, by Constrictors strangled, 

By shark or cayman snapt above the garters, 
By royal tiger or Cape lion mangled, 
Or starved to death in the wild woods entangled, 

'' Or tortured slowly at an Indian stake, 
Or smothered in the sandy hot simoon, 

Or crushed in Chili by -earth's awful quake, 
Or baked in lava, a Yesuvian tomb. 
Or dirged by syrens and the billows' boom. 

Or stiffened to a stock mid Alpine snows, 

Or stricken by the plague with sudden doom, 

Or sucked by Vampyres to a last repose, 

Or self-destroyed, impatient of my woes. 

" Still fare you well, however I may fare, 
A fare perchance to the Lethean shore. 

Caught up hy rushing whirlwinds in the air, 
Or dashed down cataracts Avith dreadful roar : 
Nay, this warm heart, once yours unto the core. 

This hand you should have claimed in church or minster^ 
Some cannibal may gnaw" — she read no more — 

Prone on the carpet fell the senseless spinster, 

Losing herself, as 'twere, in Kidderminster ! 

Of course of such a fall the shock was great, 

In rushed the father, panting from the shop. 
In rushed the mother, without cap or tete, 

Pursued by Betty Housemaid with her mop ; 

The cook to change her apron did not stop, 
The charwoman next scrambled up the stair — 

All help to lift, to haul, to seat, to prop, 
And then they stand and smother round the chair, 
Exclaiming in a chorus, " Give her air !" 



LOVE AXD LUNACY. 5/ 

One sears her nostrils Avith a burning feather, 

Another rams a phial up her nose ; 
A third crooks all her finger-joints together, 

A fourth rips up her laces and her bows, 

While all by turns keep trampling on her toes, 
And, when she gasps for breath, they pour in plump, 

A sudden drench that down her thorax goes, 
As if in fetching her — some wits so jump — 
She must be fetched with water like a pump ! 

No wonder that thus drenched, and wrenched, and galled, 

As soon as possible, from syncope's fetter 
Her senses had the sense to be recalled, 

" I "m better — that will do — indeed I 'm better," 

She cried to each importunate besetter ; 
Meanyydiile escaping from the stir and smother, 

The prudent parent seized the lover's letter, 
(Daughters should have no secrets with a Mother,) 
And read it through from one end to the other. 

From first to last, she never skipped a word — 

For young Lorenzo of all youths was one 
So wise, so good, so moral she averred, 

So clever, tjuite above the common run — 

She made him sit by her, and called him son, 
No matrimonial suit, e'en Duke's or Earl's, 

So flattered her maternal feelings — none ! 
For mothers always think young men are pearls 
Who come and throw themselves before their girls. 

And now, at warning signal from her finger. 

The servants most reluctantly withdrew, 
But listening on the stairs contrived to linger ; 

For Ellen, gazing round with eyes of blue, 



;8 LOVE AND LUNACY. 

At last the features of her parent knew, 
And, summoning her breath and vocal powers, 

" Oh, mother !' she exclaimed — " Oh, is it true — 
Our dear Lorenzo" — the dear name drew showers — 
" Ou?^s,^^ cried the mother, " pray don't call him ours ! 

''I never liked him, never, in my days !" 

[" Oh yes — ^you did" — said Ellen with a sob,] 

" There always was a something in his ways — 
["So sweet — so kind," said Ellen, with a throb,] 
" His very face was what I call a snob. 

And, spite of West End coats and pantaloons, 
He had a sort of air of the svfell mob ; 

I 'm sure when he has come of afternoons 

To tea, I 've often thought — I '11 watch my spoons 1" 

" The spoons !' cried Ellen, almost with a scream, 
"Oh cruel — false as cruel — and unjust ! 

He that once stood so high in your esteem !" 
" He !" cried the dame, grimacing her disgust, 
" I like him ? — yes — as any body must 

An infidel that scoffs at God and Devil : 
Didn't he bring you Bonaparty's bust? 

Lord ! when he calls I hardly can be civil — 

My favorite was always Mr. Neville. 

"Lorenzo? — I should like, of earthly things, 

To see him hanging forty cubits high ; 
Does n't he write like Captain Rocks and Swings ? 

Nay, in this very letter bid you try 

To make yourself particular, and tie 
A tail on — a prodigious tail ! — Oh, daughter ! 

And don't he ask you down his area — fie ! 
And recommend to cut your being shorter, 
With brick-bats round your neck in ponds of water?" 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 59 

Alas ! to think how readers thus may vary 

A writer's sense ! — What mortal would have thought 
Lorenzo's hints about Professor Airy 

And Pond to such a likeness could be brought ! 

"Who would have dreamed the simple way he taught 
To make a comet of poor Ellen's moon, 

Could furnish forth an imao-e so distrauo-ht. 
As Ellen, walking Regent Street at noon, 
Tailed — like a fat Cape sheep, or a raccoon ! 

And yet, whate'er absurdity the brains 

May hatch, it ne'er wants wet-nurses to suckle it ; 
Or dry ones, like a hen, to take the pains 

To lead the nudity abroad, and chuckle it ; 

No whim so stupid but some fool will buckle it 
To jingle bell-like on his empty head, 

No mental mud — but some will knead and knuckle it, 
And fancy they are making fancy -bread ; — ■ 
No ass has written, but some ass has read. 

No dolts could lead if otliers did not follow 'em. 

No Hahnemann could give decillionth drops 
If any man could not be got to SAvallow 'em ; 

Eut folly never comes to such full stops. 

As soon, then, as the Mother made such swaps 
Of all Lorenzo's meanings, heads and tails, 

The Father seized upon her malaprops — 
" My girl down areas — of a night ! 'Ods nails ! 
I '11 stick the scoundrel on his area- rails ! 

''I will ! — as sure as I was christened John ! 

A girl — well born — and bred — and schooled at Ditton — 
Accomplished — handsome — with a tail stuck on ! 

And chucked — Zounds ! — chucked in horseponds like a 
kitten ; 



60 LOVE AND LUNACY. 

I wish I had been by when that was written !" — 
And doubling to a fist each ample hand, 

The empty air he boxed with, a la Britton, 
As if in training for a fight, long planned, 
With Nobody — for love — at No Man's Land ! 

*' I '11 pond — I '11 tail him !'' In a voice of thunder 

He recommenced his fury and his fuss, 
Loud, open-mouthed, and wedded to his blunder, 

Like one of those great guns that end in buss. 

'• I '11 teach him to write ponds and tails to us !" 
But while so menacing this-that-and-t" others. 

His wife broke in with certain truths, as thus : 
" Men are not women — fathers can't be mothers — 
Females are females" — and a few such others. 

So saying, with rough nudges, willy-nilly, 
She hustled him outside the chamber-door, 

Looking, it must be owned, a little silly ; 
And then she did as the Carinthian boor 
Serves (Goldsmith says) the traveller that 's poor : 

Id est, she shut him in the outer space, 
With just as much apology — no more — 

As Boreas would present in such a case, 

For slamming the street door right in your face. 

And now the secrets of the sex thus kept, 

What passed in that important tete-a-tete 
'Twixt dam and daughter, nobody except 

Paul Pry, or his Twin Brother, could narrate — 

So turn we to Lorenzo, left of late 
Li front of Mrs. Snellino-'s suo-ared snacks, 

In such a very waspish stinging state — 
But now at the Old Dragon, stretched on racks, 
Fretting, and biting down his nails to tacks ; 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 01 

Because that new fast four-inside — the Comet, 



") 



Instead of keeping its appointed time, 
But deviated some few minutes from it, 

A thing with all astronomers a crime, 

And he had studied in that lore sublime ; 
Nor did his heat get any less or shorter 

For pouring upon passion's unslacked lime 
A well-grown glass of Cogniac and water, 
Mixed stiff as starch by the Old Dragon's daughter. 

At length, " Fair Ellen"' sounding with a flourish, 
The Comet came all bright, bran new, and smart : 

Meanwhile the melody conspired to nourish 
The hasty spirit in Lorenzo's heart, 
And soon upon the roof he '' topped his part," 

Which never had a more impatient man on. 
Wishing devoutly that the steeds would start 

Like lightning greased — or, as at Ballyshannon 

Sublimed, " greased lightning shot out of a cannon !" 

For, ever since the letter left his hand. 
His mind had been in vasci Hating motion, 

Dodge-dodo-ino; like a flustered crab on land, 
That can not ask its way, and has no notion 
If right or left leads to the German Ocean — 

Hatred and Love by turns enjoyed monopolies, 
Till, like a Doctor following his own potion, 

Before a learned pig could spell Acropolis, 

He went and booked himself for our metropolis. 

" Oh, for a horse," or rather four — •' with wings !" 
For so he put his wish into the plural — 

No relish he retained for country things, 
He could not join felicity with rural. 



62 LOVE AND LUNACY. 

His thoughts were all with London and the mural. 
"Where architects — not paupers — heap and j^ile stones ; 

Or with the horses' muscles, called the crural, 
How fast they could macadamize the milestones 
Which passed as tediously as gall or bile stones. 

Blind to the picturesque, he ne'er perceived 

In Nature one artistical fine stroke ; 
For instance, how that purple hill relieved 

The beggar-woman in the gipsy-poke, 

And how the red cow carried off her cloak ; 
Or how the aged horse, so gaunt and grey, 

Threw off a noble mass of beech and oak ! 
Or, how the tinker's ass, beside the way. 
Came boldly out from a white cloud — to bray ! 

Such things have no delight for worried men. 
That travel full of care and anxious smart : 

Coachmen and horses are your artists then ; 
Just try a team of draughtsmen with the Dart, 
Take Shee, for instance, Etty, Jones, and Hart, 

Let every neck be put into its noose. 

Then tip 'em on the flank to make 'em start. 

And see how they Avill draw ! — Four screws let loose 

Would make a difference — or I 'm a goose ! 

Nor cared he more about the promised crops, 

If oats were looking up, or wheat was laid. 
For flies in turnips, or a blight in hops. 

Or how the barley prospered or decayed ; 

In short, no items of the farming trade. 
Peas, beans, tares, 'taters, could his mind beguile ; 

Nor did he answer to the servant maid. 
That always asked at every other mile, 
*' Where do we change, sir?" with her sweetest smile. 



LOVE AND- LUNACY. 63 

Nor more he listened to the Politician, 



Who lectured on his left, a formal prig, 
Of Belgium's, Greece's, Turkey's sad condition, 

Not worth a cheese, an olive, or a fig ; 

Nor yet unto the critic, fierce and big. 
Who, holding forth, all lonely, in his glory, 

Called one a sad bad Poet^ — and a Whig, 
And one, a first-rate proser — and a Tory ; 
So critics judge, now, of a song or story. 

Nay, when the coachman spoke about the 'Leger, 
Of Popsy, Mopsy, Bergamotte, and Civet, 

Of breeder, trainer, owner, backer, hedger. 
And nags as right, or righter than a trivet. 
The theme his cracked attention could not rivet ; 

Though leaning forward to the man of whips. 
He seemed to give an ear — but did not give it, 

For Ellen's moon (that saddest of her slips) 

Would not be hidden by a " new Eclipse." 

If any thought e'er flitted in his head 

Belonging to the sphere of Bland and Crocky, 

It was to wish the team all thorough-bred. 
And every buckle on their backs a jockey : 
When spinning down a steep descent, or rocky. 

He never watched the wheel, and longed to lock it, 
He liked the bolters that set off so cocky 

Nor did it shake a single nerve or shock it. 

Because the Comet raced against the Rocket. 

Thanks to which rivalry, at last the journey 
Finished an hour and a quarter under time, 

Without a case for surgeon or attorney, 
Just as St. James's rang its seventh chime, 



64 LOVE AND LUNACY. 

And now, descending from his seat sublime, 
Behold Lorenzo, weariest of wights, 
In that great core of brick, and stone, and lime, 
Called England's Heart — but which, as seen of nights, 
Has rather more the appearance of its lights. 

Away he scudded — elbowing, perforce, 

Through cads, and lads, and many a Hebrew worrier, 
Vi'ith fruit, knives, pencils — all dirt cheap, of course, 

Coachmen, and hawkers, of the Globe and ''Currier;" 

Away ! the cookmaid is not such a skurrier, 
When, fit to split her gingham as she goes. 

With six just striking on the clock to hurry her, 
She strides along with one of her three beaux. 
To get well placed at " Ashley's" — now Ducrow's. 

" I wonder if her moon is -full to-night !" 

He muttered, jealous as a Spanish Don, 
When, lo ! to aggravate that inward spite, 

In glancing at a board he spied thereon 

A play-bill for dramatic folks to con. 
In letters such as those may read, who run, 

" 'KING JOHN'— oh yes— I recollect King John ! 
' My Lord, they say five moons' — -Jive moons ! well done ! 
I wonder Ellen was content with one ! 

" Eive moons — all full ! and all at once in heaven ! 

She should have lived in that prolific reign !" 
Here he arrived in front of number seven, 

The abode of all his joy and all his pain ; 

A sudden tremor shot through every vein, 
He wished he 'd come up by the heavy wagon, 

And felt an impulse to turn back again. 
Oh, that he ne'er had quitted the Old Dragon ! 
Then came a sort of longing for a flagon. 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 65 

His tongue and palate seemed so parched with drouth 

The very knocker filled his soul with dread, 

As if it had a living lion's mouth, 

With teeth so terrible, and tongue so red, 
In which he had engaged to put his head. 

The bell-pull turned his courage into vapor. 

As though 'twould cause a shower-bath to shed 

Its thousand shocks, to make him sigh and caper — 

He looked askance, and did not like the scraper. 

"What business have I here ? (he thought) a dunce 
A hopeless passion thus to fan and foster. 

Instead of putting out its wick at once ; 

She "s gone — it 's very evident I 've lost her — 
And to the Avanton wind I should have tossed her — ■ 

Pish ! I will leave her w^ith her moon, at ease. 
To toast and eat it, like a single Gloster, 

Or cram some fool with it, as good green cheese, 

Or make a honey-moon, if so she please. 

"Yes — here I leave her," and as thus he spoke, 

He plied the knocker w^th such needless force, 
It almost split the pannel of sound oak ; 

And then he went as wildly through a course 

Of ringing, till he made abrupt divorce 
Between the bell and its dumbfounded handle ; 

While up ran Betty, out of breath and hoarse, 
And thrust into his face her blown-out candle. 
To recognize the author of such scandal. 

Who, presto ! cloak, and carpet-bag to boot, 

Went stumbling, rumbling, up the dark one pair, 

With other noise than his whose ' ' very foot 
Had music in 't as he came up the stair :" 

TOL. IT. Li 



66 LOVE AND LUNACY. 

And then with no more manners than a bear, 
His hat upon his head, no matter how, 

No modest tap his presence to declare, 
He bolted in a room, without a bow, 
And there sat Ellen, with a marble brow ! 

Like fond Medora, watching at her window, 

Yet not of any Corsair bark in search — 
The jutting lodging-house of Mrs. Lindo, 

"The Cheapest House in ToAvn" of Todd and Sturch, 

The private house of Reverend Doctor Birch, 
The public-house, closed nightly at eleven, 

And then that house of prayer, the parish church, 
Some roofs and chimneys, and a glimpse of heaven, 
Made up the whole look-out of Number Seven. 

Yet something in the prospect so absorbed her, 

She seemed quite drowned and dozing in a dream; 

As if her own beloved full moon still orbed her, 
Lulling her fancy in some lunar scheme. 
With lost Lorenzo, may be, for its theme — 

Yet when Lorenzo touched her on the shoulder, 
She started up with an abortive scream. 

As if some midnight ghost, from regions colder, 

Had come within his bony arms to fold her. 

"Lorenzo!"— "Ellen!" — then came "Sir!" and "Madam!" 
They tried to speak, but hammered at each word. 

As if it were a flint for great MacAdam ; 
Such broken English never else was heard. 
For like an aspen leaf each nerve was stirred, 

A chilly tremor thrilled them through and through, 
Their eiforts to be stiff were quite absurd. 

They shook like jellies made without a due 

And proper share of common joiner's glue. 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 67 

" Ellen ! I 'm come — to bid jou — fare — farewell" 
They thus began to fight their verbal duel ; 

*' Since some more hap — hap — happy man must dwell — " 
" Alas — Loren — Lorenzo ! — cru — cru — cruel !" 
For so they split their words like grits for gruel. 

At last the Lover, as he long had planned, 
Drew out that once inestimable jewel, 

Her portrait, which was erst so fondly scanned, 

And thrust poor Ellen's face into her hand. 

*' There — take it, Madam — take it back I crave, 
The face of one — but I must now forget her, 

Bestow it on whatever hapless slave 

Your art has last enticed into your fetter — 
And there are your epistles — there ! each letter ! 

I wish no record of your vow's infractions, 

Send them to South — or Children — you had better — 

They will be novelties — rare benefactions 

To shine in Philosophical Transactions ! 

"Take them — pray take them — I resign them quite ! 

And there "s the glove you gave me leave to steal — 
And there "s the handkerchief, so pure and white 

Once sanctified by tears, when" Miss O'Neill — 

But no — you did not — cannot — do not feel 
A Juliet's faith, that time could only harden ! 

Fool that I was, in my mistaken zeal ! 
I should have led you — by your leave and pardon — 
To Bartley's Orrery, not Covent Garden ! 

" And here 's the birth-day ring — nor man nor devil 
Should once have torn it from my living hand, 

Perchance 't will look as well on Mr. Neville ; 
And that — and tliat is all — and now I stand 



38 LOVE AND LUNACY. 

Absolved of each dissevered tic and band — 
And so farewell, till Time's eternal sickle 

Shall reap our lives; in this, or foreign land 
Some other may be found for truth to stickle 
Almost as fair — and not so false and fickle !" 

And there he ceased : as truly it was time, 
For of the various themes that left his mouth, 

One half surpassed her intellectual climb : 

She knew no more than the old Hill of Howth 
About that " Children of a larger growth," 

Who notes proceedings of the F. R. S/s; 

Kit North, was just as strange to her as South, 

Except the South the weathercock expresses, 

Nay, Bartley's Orrery defied her guesses. 

Howbeit some notion of his jealous drift 
She gathered from the simple outward fact 

That her own lap contained each slighted gift ; 
Though quite unconsious of his cause to act 
So like Othello, with his face unblacked ; 

" Alas !" she sobbed, "your cruel course I see 
These faded charms no longer can attract ; 

Your ftincy palls, and y©u would wander free, 

And lay your own apostacy on me ! 

'' /, false ! — unjust Lorenzo ! — and to you ! 

Oh, all ye holy gospels that incline 
The soul to truth, bear witness I am true ! 

By all that lives, of earthly or divine — 

So long as this poor throbbing heart is mine — 
/ false ! — the world shall change its course as soon ! 

True as the streamlet to the stars that shine — 
True as the dial to the sun at nooii. 
True as the tide to ' yonder blessed moon' !" 



LOVE AND LUNACY. 69 

And as she spoke, she pointed through the window, 
Somewhere above the houses' distant tops, 

Betwixt the chimney-pots of Mrs. Lindo, 

And Todd and Sturch's cheapest of all shops 
For ribbons, laces, muslins, silks, and fops ; — 

Meanwhile, as she upraised her flice so Grecian, 
And eyes suffused with scintillating drops, 

Lorenzo looked, too, o'er the blinds Venetian, 

To see the sphere so troubled with repletion. 

" The Moon !" he cried, and an electric spasm 
Seemed all at once his features to distort. 

And fixed his mouth, a dumb and gaping chasm— 
His faculties benumbed and all amort — 
At last his voice came, of most shrilly sort, 

Just like a sea-gull's wheeling round a rock — 

" Speak ! — Ellen ! — is your sight indeed so short ! 

The Moon ! — Brute ! savage that I am, and block ! 

The Moon ! (0, ye Romantics, what a shock 1) 

Why that 's the new Illuminated Clock V 



BALLADS: 



SERIOUS, VERY SERIOUS, AND PATHETIC. 



BALLADS, 



THE POACHER. 

A SERIOUS BALLAD. 

But a bold pheasantry, their country's pride, 
When once destroyed can never be supplied. 

Goldsmith. 

Bill Blossom was a nice young man, 

And drove the Bur j coach ; 
But bad companions were his bane, 

And egged him on to poach. 

They taught him how to net the birds, 

And how to noose the hare ; 
And with a wiry terrier, 

He often set a snare. 

Each " shiny night" the moon was bright, 

To park, preserve, and wood 
He went, and kept the game alive, 

By killing all he could. 

Land-owners, who had rabbits, swore 

That he had this demerit — 
Give him an inch of warren, he 

Would take a yard of ferret. 



74 THE POACHER. 

At partridges he was not nice ; 

And many, large and small, 
Without Hall's powder, without lead, 

Were sent to Leaden-Hall. 

He did not fear to take a deer 
From forest, park, or lawn ; 

And without courting lord or duke, 
Used frequently io fawn. 

Folks who had hares discovered snares — 
His course they could not stop : 

No barber he, and yet he made 
Their hares a perfect crop. 

To pheasant he was such a foe, 
He tried the keeper's nerves ; 

They swore he never seemed to have 
Jam satis oi preserves. 

The Shooter went to beat, and found 

No sporting worth a pin, 
Unless he tried the covers made 

Of silver, plate, or tin. 

In Kent the game was little worth, 

In Surrey not a button ; 
The Speaker said he often tried 

The Manors about Sutton. 

\ No county from his tricks was safe ; 

In each he tried his lucks, 
But when the keepers were in Beda^ 
He often was at Bricks. 



THE SUPPER SUPERSTITION. 75 

And when he went to Bucks, alas ! 

Thej always came to Herts ; 
And even Oxon used to wish 

That he had his deserts. 

But going to his usual Hants, 

Old Cheshire laid his plots ; 
He got entrapped by legal Berks, 

And lost his life in Notts. 



THE SUPPER SUPERSTITION. 

A PATHETIC BALLAD. 
"Oh flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified!" — Mercittio. 

'T WAS twelve o'clock by Chelsea chimes, 

When all in hungry trim, 
Good Mister Jupp sat down to sup 

With wife, and Kate, and Jim. 

Said he, " Upon this dainty cod 
How bravely I shall sup," — 

When, whiter than the table-cloth, 
A GHOST came rising up ! 

*' 0, father dear, 0, mother dear, 
Dear Kate, and brother Jim — 

You know when some one went to sea — 
Don't cry — but I am him ! 

*' You hope some day with fond embrace 

To greet your absent Jack, 
But oh, I am come here to say 

I 'm never coming back ! 



76 THE SUPPER SUPERSTITION. 

" From Alexandria we set sail, 
With corn, and oil, and figs. 

But steering ' too much Sow' we struck 
Upon the Sow and Pigs ! 

*' The Ship we pumped till we could see 
Old England from the tops ; 

When down she went with all our hands, 
Right in the Channel's Chops. 

*' Just give a look in Norey's chart, 

The very place it tells ; 
I think it says twelve fathom deep. 

Clay bottom, mixed with shells. 

" Well there we are till ' hands aloft,' 

We have at last a call ; 
The pug I had for brother Jim, 

Kate's parrot too, and all. 

*' But oh, my spirit cannot rest, 

In Davy Jones's sod, 
Till I 've appeared to you and said — 

Don't sup on that 'ere Cod ! 

"You live on land, and little think 

What passes in the sea ; 
Last Sunday week, at 2 p.m. 

That Cod was picking me ! 

" Those oysters too, that look so plump, 

And seem so nicely done. 
They put my corpse in many shells, 

Instead of only one. 



A WATERLOO BALLAD. 77 

"0, do not eat those oysters then, 

And do not touch the shrimps ; 
When I was in my briny grave, 

They sucked my blood like imps ! 

" Don't eat what brutes Avould never eat. 

The brutes I used to pat, 
They '11 know the smell they used to smell, 

Just try the dog and cat !" 

The Spirit fled — they wept his fate, 

And cried, Alack, alack ! 
At last up started brother Jim, 

" Let 's try if Jack was Jack !" 

They called the Dog, they called the Cat, 

And little Kitten too, 
And down they put the Cod and sauce, 

To see what brutes would do. 

Old Tray licked all the oysters up. 

Puss never stood at crimps, 
But munched the Cod — and little Kit 

Quite feasted on the shrimps ! 

The thing was odd, and minus Cod 

And sauce, they stood like posts ! 
0, prudent folks, for fear of hoax. 

Put no belief in Ghosts ! 



A WATERLOO BALLAD. 

To Waterloo, with sad ado, 
And many a sigh and groan, 

Amongst the dead, came Patty Head, 
To look for Peter Stone. 



78 A WATERLOO BALLAD. 

" prithee tell, good sentinel, 

If I shall find him here ? 
I 'm come to weep upon his corse, 

My Ninety- Second dear ! 

*' Into our town a serjeant came 

With ribands all so fine, 
A-flaunting in his cap — alas ; 
f His bow enlisted mine ! 

*' They taught him how to turn his toes, 
And stand as stifi" as starch ; 

I thought that it was love and May, 
But it was love and March ! 

*' A sorry March indeed to leave 
The friends he might have kep' — 

No March of Intellect it was, 
But quite a foolish step. 

" prithee tell, good sentinel. 

If hereabout he lies ? 
I want a corse with reddish hair, 

And very sweet blue eyes." 

Her sorrow on the sentinel 
Appeared to deeply strike ; — 

*'Walk in," he said, "among the dead, 
And pick out which you like." 

And soon she picked out Peter Stone, 

Half turned into a corse ; 
A cannon was his bolster, and 

His mattrass was a horse. 



A WATERLOO BALLAD. 

'' Peter Stone, Peter Stone, 
Lord here has been a scrimmao-e ! 

What have they done to your poor breast 
That used to hold my image?" 

" Patty Head, Patty Head, 
You 're come to my last kissmg ; 

Before I 'm set in the Gazette 
As wounded, dead, and missing ! 

'' Alas ! a splinter of a shell 
Right in my stomach sticks ; 

French mortars don't agree so well 
With stomachs as French bricks. 

*' This very night a merry dance 

At Brussels was to be ; — 
Instead of opening a ball, 

A ball has opened me. 

" Its billet every bullet has. 

And well it does fulfil it : — 
I wish mine hadn't come so straight, 

But been a ' crooked billet.' 

'^And then there came a cuirassier 

And cut me on the chest ; — 
He had no pity in his heart. 

For he had steeled his hy^east. 

'' Next thing a lancer, with his lance, 

Began to thrust away ; 
I called for quarter, but, alas ! 

It was not Quarter-day. 



79 



Bo A WATERLOO BALLAD. 

" He ran his spear right through my ann. 
Just here above the joint ; — 

Patty dear, it was no joke, 
Although it had a point. 

"With loss of blood I fainted off, 

As dead as women do — 
But soon by charging over me, 

The Coldstream brought me to. 

" With kicks and cuts, and balls and blows, 
I throb and ache all over ; 

1 'm quite convinced the field of Mars 

Is not a field of clover ! 

" why did I a soldier turn 

For any royal Guelph ? 
I might have been a butcher, and 

In business for myself ! 

" why did I the bounty take 
(And here he gasped for breath) 

My shilling's worth of 'list is nailed 
Upon the door of death ! 

" Without a coffin I shall lie 
And sleep my sleep eternal : 

Not ev'n a shell — my only chance 
Of being made a Kernel ! 

" Patty dear, our wedding bella 

Will never ring at Chester ! 
Here I must lie in Honor's bed, 

That isn't worth a tester ! 



THE DUEL. SI 



'' Farewell, my regimental mates, 
With whom I used to dress ! 

Mj corps is changed, and I am now, 
In quite another mess. 

" Farewell, my Patty dear, I have 

No dying consolations. 
Except, when I am dead, you '11 go 

And see th' Illuminations." 



THE DUEL. 



A SERIOUS BALLAD, 
"Like the two Kings of Brentford smelling at one nosegay." 

In Brentford town, of old renown, 

There lived a Mr. Bray, 
Who fell in love with Lucy Bell, 

And so did Mr. Clay. 

To see her ride from Hammersmith, 

By all it was allowed, 
Such fair outsides are seldom seen, 

Such Angels on a Cloud. 

Said Mr. Bray to Mr. Clay, 

You choose to rival me. 
And court Miss Bell, but there your court 

No thoroughfare shall be. 

Unless you now give up your suit, 

You may repent your love ; 
I who have shot a pigeon match, 

Can shoot a turtle dove. 

VOL, II. 6 



82 THE DUEL. 

So pray before jou woo her more, 

Consider what jou do : 
If you pop aught to Lucy Bell — ■ 

I '11 pop it into you. 

Said Mr. Clay to Mr. Bray, 
Your threats I quite explode ; 

One who has been a volunteer, 
Knows how to prime and load. 

And so I say to you unless 

Your passion quiet keeps, 
I who have shot and hit bulls' eyes, 

May chance to hit a sheep's. 

Now gold is oft for silver changed, 

And that for copper red ; 
But these two went away to give 

Each other change for lead. 

But first they sought a friend a-piece, 
This pleasant thought to give — 

When they were dead, they thus should have 
Two seconds still to live. 

To measure out the ground not long 

The seconds then forbore, 
And having taken one rash step 

They took a dozen more. 

They next prepared each pistol-pan 

Against the deadly strife. 
By putting in the prime of death 

Against the prime of life. 



THE DUEL. go 



Now all was readj for the foes 
But when they took their stands, 

Fear made them tremble so they found 
They both were shaking hands. 

« 

Said Mr. C. to Mr. B., 

Here one of us may fall, 
And like St. Paul's Cathedral now, 

Be doomed to have a ball. 

I do confess I did attach 

Misconduct to your name : 
If I withdraw the charge, will then 

Your ramrod do the same ? 

Said Mr. B., I do agree- 
But think of Honor's Courts ! 

If we go off without a shot, 
There will be strange reports. 

But look, the morning now is bright, 

Though cloudy it begun ; 
Why can't we aim above, as if 

We had called out the sun ? 

So up into the harmless air. 
Their bullets they did send ; 

And may all other duels have 
That upshot in the end ! 



84 THE GHOST. 



THE GHOST. 

A VERY SERIOUS BALLAD. 
" I '11 be your second." — Liston. 

In Middle Row, some years ago, 
There lived one Mr. Brown ; 

And many folks considered him 
The stoutest man in town. 

But Brown and stout will both wear out, 

One Friday he died hard, 
And left a widowed wife to mourn 

At twenty pence a yard. 

Now widow B. in two short months 
Thought mourning quite a tax, 

And wished, like Mr. Wilberforce, 
To manwnit her blacks. 

With Mr. Street she soon was sweet; 

The thing thus came about : 
She asked him in at home, and then 

At church he asked her out ! 

Assurance such as' this the man 

In ashes could not stand ; 
So like a Phoenix he rose up 

Against the Hand in Hand. 

One dreary night the angry sprite 

Appeared before our view ; 
It came a little after one, 

But she was after two ! 



THE GHOST. 85 



"Oh Mrs. B., oh Mrs. B. ! 

Are these your sorrow "s deeds, 
Already getting up a flame 
To burn your widow's weeds? 

*' It 's not so long since I have left 

For aye the mortal scene ; 
My Memory — like Rogers's, 

Should still be bound in green ! 

*' Yet if my face you still retrace 

I almost have a doubt — 
I 'm like an old Forget-Me-Not 

With all the leaves torn out ! 

" To think that on that finger joint 
Another pledge should cling ; 

Oh Bess ! upon my very soul 
It struck like ' Knock and Ring.' 

" A ton of marble on my breast 

Can't hinder my return ; 
Your conduct, Ma'am, has set my blood 

A-boiling in my urn ! 

"Remember, oh! remember, how 
The marriage rite did run — 

If ever we one flesh should be 
'Tis now — when I have none ! 

" And you, sir — once a bosom friend — 

Of perjured faith convict, 
As ghostly toe can give no blow, 

Consider you are kicked. 



86 SALLY SIMPKIN's LAMENT 

" A hollow voice is all I have^ 
But this I tell you plain, 

Marry come up ! — you marry Ma'am, 
And I " 11 come up again. ' ' 

More he had said, but chanticleer 
The sprightly shade did shock 

With sudden crow, and off he went, 
Like fowling-piece at cock ! 



SALLY SIMPKIN'S LAMENT; 

OR, JOHN Jones's kit-cat-astrophe. 

"He left bis body to tbe sea, 
And made a shark his legatee." 

Bryan and Pekenne. 

** Oh ! what is that comes gliding in. 

And quite in middling haste ? 
It is the picture of my Jones, 

And painted to the waist. 

*' It is not painted to the life, 
For where 's the trowsers blue ? 

Oh Jones, my dear ! — Oh dear ! my Jones, 
What is become of you ?" 

*' Oh ! Sally dear, it is too true — 

The half that you remark 
Is come to say my other half 

Is bit off by a shark ! 

" Oh ! Sally, sharks do things by halves, 

Yet most completely do ! 
A bite in one place seems enough, 

But I 've been bit in two. 



SALLY SIMPKIN'R LAMENT. 87 

" You know I once was all jour own 

But now a shark must share ! 
But let that pass — for now to jou 

I 'm neither here nor there. 

"Alas ! death has a strange divorce 

Effected in the sea. 
It has divided me from you, 

And even me from me ! 

" Don't fear my ghost will walk o' nights 

To haunt, as people say ; 
My ghost canH walk, for, oh ! my legs 

Are many leagues away! 

" Lord ! think wdien I am swimming round 

And looking where the boat is, 
A shark just snaps away a half^ 

Without ' a quarter's notice.' 

" One half is here, the other half, 

Is near Columbia placed ; 
Oh ! Sally, I have got the whole 

Atlantic for my waist. 

" But now, adieu — a long adieu ! 

I 've solved death's awful riddle. 
And would say more, but I am doomed 

To break off in the middle !" 



^8 JOHN DAY. 



JOHN DAY. 

A PATHETIC BALLAD. 
"A Day after the Fair!" — Old Proverb. 

John Day he was the biggest man 
Of all the coachman-kind, 

With back too broad to be conceived 
Bj any narrow mind. 

The very horses knew his weight 
When he was in the rear, 

And wished his box a Christmas-box 
To come but once a year. ■ 

Alas ! against the shafts of love, 

What armor can avail ? 
Soon Cupid sent an arrow through 

His scarlet coat of mail. 

The bar-maid of the Crown he loved 
From whom he never ranged. 

For tho' he changed his horses there, 
His love he never changed. 

He thought her fairest of all fares, 

So fondly love prefers ; 
And often, among twelve outsides, 

Deemed no outside like hers. 

One day as she was sitting down 
Beside the porter-pump — 

He came, and knelt with all his fat, 
And made an offer plump. 



JOHN DAY. 89 

Said she, my taste will never lean 

To like so huge a man, 
So I must beg you will come here 

As little as you can. 

But still he stoutly urged his suit, 

With vows, and sighs, and tears, 
Yet could not pierce her heart, although 

He drove the Dart for years. 

In vain he wooed, in vain he sued ; 

The maid was cold and proud^ 
And sent him oiF to Coventry, 

While on his way to Stroud. 

He fretted all the way to Stroud, 

And thence all back to town, 
The course of love was never smooth, 

So his went up and down. 

At last her coldness made him pine 

To merely bones and skin ; 
But still he loved like one resolved 

To love through thick and thin. 

Oh Mary, view my wasted back, 

And see my dwindled calf; 
Tho' I have never had a wife, 

I 've lost my better half 

Alas, in vain he still assailed. 

Her heart withstood the dint ; 
Though he had carried sixteen stone 

He could not move a flint. 



90 pompey's ghost. 

Worn out, at last he made a vow 

To break his being's link ; 
For he was so reduced in size 

At nothing he could shrink. 

Now some will talk in water's praise, 
And waste a deal of breath, 

But John, though he drank nothing else- 
He drank himself to death. 

The cruel maid that caused his love, 

Found out the fatal close, 
For looking in the butt, she saw. 

The butt-end of his woes. 

Some say his spirit haunts the Crown, 

But that is only talk — 
For after riding all his life, 

His ghost objects to walk. 



POMPEY'S GHOST. 

A PATHETIC BALLAD. 

"Skins may differ, Imt affection 
Dwells in white and black the same." 

Cow ( ER. 

'TwAS twelve o'clock, not twelve at night 

But twelve o'clock at noon ; 
Because the sun was shining bright 

And not the silver moon. 
A proper time for friends to call, 

Or Pots, or Penny Post ; 
When, lo ! as Phoebe sat at work, 

She saw her Pompey's Ghost ! 



pompey's ghost. 91 



Now when a female has a call 

From people that are dead ; 
Like Paris ladies, she receives 

Her visiters in bed. 
But Pompeys spirit would not come 

Like spirits that are white, 
Because he was a Blackamoor, 

And wouldn't show at night ! 

But of all unexpected things 

That happen to us here, 
The most unpleasant is a rise 

In what is very dear. 
So Phoebe screamed an awful scream 

To prove the seaman's text ; 
That after black appearances. 

White squalls will follow next. 

'' Oh, Phoebe dear ! oh, Phoebe dear! 

Don't go to scream or faint; 
You think because I 'm black I am 

The Devil, but I ain't ! 
Behind the heels of Lady Lambe 

I walked while 1 had breath ; 
But that is past, and I am now 

A-walking after Death ! 

'^ No murder, though, I come to tell 

By base and bloody crime ; 
So Phoebe dear, put off your fits 

To some more fitting time. 
No Coroner, like a boatswain's mate, 

My body need attack. 
With his round dozen to find out 

Why I have died so black. 



92 pompey's ghost. 

" One Sunday, sliortlj after tea, 

Mj skin began to burn 
As if I had in my inside 

A heater, like the urn. 
Delirious in the night I grew. 

And as I lay in bed. 
They say I gathered all the wool 

You see upon my head. 

*' His Lordship for his Doctor sent, 

My treatment to begin ; — 
I wish that he had called him out. 

Before he called him in ! 
For though to physic he was bred, 

And passed at Surgeon's Hall, 
To make his post a sinecure 

He never cured at all ! 

" The Doctor looked about my breast, 

And then about my back. 
And then he shook his head and said 

'Your case looks very black.' 
And first he sent me hot cayenne 

And then gamboge to swallow, 
But still my fever would not turn 

To Scarlet or to Yellow ! 

"With madder and with turmeric, 

He made his next attack ; 
But neither he nor all his drugs 

Could stop my dying black. 
At last I got so sick of life, 

And sick of being dosed. 
One Monday morning I gave up 

My physic and the ghost ! 



pompey's ghost. 98 



" Oh, Phoebe, dear, what pain it was 

To sever every tie ! 
You know black beetles feel as much 

As giants when they die. 
And if there is a bridal bed, 

Or bride of little worth. 
It 's lying in a bed of mould, 

Along: with Mother Earth. 



"O 



"Alas; some happy, happy day, 

In church I hoped to stand, 
And like a muff of sable skin 

Receive your lily hand. 
But sternly with that piebald match, 

My fate untimely clashes, 
For now, like Pompe-double-i, 

I 'm sleeping in my ashes ! 

" And now farewell ! a last farewell 1 

I 'm wanted down below, 
And have but time enough to add 

One word before I go — 
In mourning crape and bombazine 

Ne'er spend your precious pelf — 
Don't go in black for me — for I 

Can do it for myself 

"Henceforth within my grave I rest, 

But Death who there inherits, 
Allowed my spirit leave to come. 

You seemed so out of spirits : 
But do not sigh, and do not cry. 

By grief too much engrossed, 
Kor for a ghost of color, turn 

The color of a ghost ! 



94 pompey's ghost. 

"Again, farewell, my Phoebe dear! 

Once more a last adieu ! 
For I must make myself as scarce 

As swans of sable hue." 
From black to gray, from gray to nought, 

The shape began to fade — 
And, like an egg, though not so white, 

The Ghost was newly laid ! 



ODES: 



TO DIA^EES PERSONS AND FOR SUNDRY OCCASIONS. 



ODES. 



ODE TO M. BRUNEL/ 

♦' l^ell said, old Molel canst work i' the dark so fast ? a worthy pioneer I— HAMurt 

Well ! Monsieur Brunei, 

How prospers now thy mighty undertaking, 
To join by a hollow way the Bankside friends 
Of Rotherhithe, and Wapping — - 

Never be stopping, 
But poking, groping, in the dark keep making 
An archway, underneath the Dabs and Gudgeons, 
For Collier men and pitchy old Curmudgeons 
To cross the water in inverse proportion, 
Walk under steam-boats under the keel's ridge, 
To keep down all extortion, 
And without sculls to diddle London Bridge ! 
In a fresh hunt, a new Great Bore to worry, 
Thou didst to earth thy human terriers follow, 
Hopeful at last from Middlesex to Surrey, 

To give us the " View hollow." 
In short it was thy aim, right north and south, 
To put 11 pipe into old Thames's mouth ; 
Alas ! half-way thou hadst proceeded, when 
Old Thames, through roof, not water-proof, 

VOL. 11. 7 



98 ODE TO M. BRUNEL. 

Came, like " a tide in the affairs of men;'' 
And with a mighty stormy kind of roar. 
Reproachful of thy wrong, 
Burst out in that old song 
Of Incledon's, beginning " Cease, rude Bore" — 
Sad is it, worthy of one's tears, 

Just when one seems the most successful, 
To find one's self o'er head and ears 

In difficulties most distressful ! 
Other great speculations have been nursed 

Till want of proceeds laid them on a shelf; 
But thy concern was at the worst 

When it began to liquidate itself ! 
But now Dame Fortune has her false face hidden, 
And languishes thy Tunnel — so to paint — 
Under a slow, incurable complaint, 

Bed-ridden ! 
Why, when thus Thames — bed-bothered — why repine ! 
Do try a spare bed at the Serpentine ! 
Yet let none think thee dazed, or crazed, or stupid ; 

And sunk beneath thy own and Thames' s craft ; 
Let them not style thee some Mechanic Cupid 

Pining and pouting o'er a broken shaft ! 
I '11 tell thee with thy tunnel what to do ; 
Light up thy boxes, build a bin or two, 
The wine does better than such water trades ; 

Stick up a sign — the sign of the Bore's Head ; 

I 've drawn it ready for thee in black lead. 
And make thy cellar subterrane — Thy Shades ! 



ODE FOR THE REMOVAL OF SMITHFIELD MARKET. 99 

ODE 

TO THE ADVOCATES FOR THE REMOVAL OP SMITHFIELD MARKET." 
"Sweeping our flocks and herds/'— Douglas. 

PHILANTHROPIC men ! — 

For this address I need not make apology — 
Who aim at clearing out the Smithfield pen, 
And planting further off its vile Zoology — 
Permit me thus to tell, 

1 like your efforts well, 

For routing that great nest of Hornithology ! 

Be not dismayed, although repulsed at first, 
And driven from their Horse, and Pig, and Lamb parts, 
Charge on ■ — you shall upon their horn- works burst, 
And carry all their 5w//-Avarks and their i?a^7^-parts. 

Go on, ye wholesale drovers ! 
And drive away the Smithfield flocks and herds ! 

As wild as Tartar- Curds, 
That come so fat, and kicking, from their clovers. 
Off with them all ! — those restive brutes, that vex 
Our streets, and plunge, and lunge, and butt, and battle ; 

And save the female sex 
From being cowed — like I<i — by the cattle ! 

Fancy — when droves appear on 
The hill of Holborn, roaring from its top — 
Your ladies — ready, as they own, to drop, 
Taking themselves to Thomson's with a Fear-on! 

Or, in St. Martin's Lane, 
Scared by a Bullock, in a frisky vein — 
Fancy the terror of your timid daughters, 

While rushing souse 

Into a coffee-house. 
To find it — Slaughter's ! 



100 ODE FOR THE REMOVAL OF 

Or fancy this : — 
"Walking along the street, some stranger Miss, 
Her head with no such thought of danger laden, 
When suddenly 'tis "Aries Taurus Virgo !" — 
You don't know Latin, I translate it ergo. 
Into your Areas a Bull throws the Maiden ! 

Think of some poor old crone 
Treated, just like a penny, with a toss ! 
At that vile spot now grown 
So generally known 
. For making a Cow Cross ! 

Nay, fancy your own selves far off from stall, 
Or shed, or shop — and that an Ox infuriate 

Just pins you to the wall. 
Giving you a strong dose of Oxy-Muriate ! 

Methinks I hear the neighbors that live round 

The Market-ground 
Thus make anneal unto their civic fellows — 
*"Tis well for you that live apart — unable 

To hear this brutal Babel, 
But om: firesides are troubled with their bellows J ^ 

" Folks that too freely sup 

Must e'en put up 
With their own troubles if they can't digest; 

But we must needs regard 

The case as hard 
That others'' victuals should disturb our rest, 
That from our sleep your food should start and jump us ! 

We like, ourselves, a steak, 

But, Sirs, for pity's sake ! 
We don't want oxen at our doors to riimp-us ! 



SMITIIFIELD MARKET. 101 

If we do doze — it really is too bad ! 
We constantlj are roared awake or rung, 

Through bullocks mad 
That run in all the ' Night Thoughts" of our Young !" 

Such are the woes of sleepers — now let 's take 
The woes of those that wish to keep a Wake ! 
Oh think ! when Wombwell gives his annual feasts, 
Think of these "Bulls of Basan" far from mild oneaj 

Such fierce tame beasts, 
That nobody much cares to see the Wild ones .' 

Think of the Show woman " what shows a. D'vr^/'f,'* 

Seeing a red Cow come 

To swallow her Tom Thumb^ 
And forced with broom of birch to keep her off"' 

Think, too, of Messrs. Hichardson and Co., 
When looking at their public private boxes, 

To see in the back row 
Three live sheep's heads, a porker's, and an Ox'si 
Think of their Orchestra, when two horns come 
Through, to accompany the double drum ! 

Or, in the midst of murder and remorses, ,r 

Just when the Ghost is certain, 

A great rent in the curtain. 
And enter two tall skeletons — of Horses ! 

Great Philanthropies ! pray urge these topics ! 
Upon the Solemn Councils of the Nation, 
Get a Bill soon, and give, some noon. 
The Bulls, a Bull of Excommunication ! 

Let the old Fair have fair-play as its right, 
And to each show and sigh^ 



102 ODE TO THE CAMELOPARD. 

Ye shall be treated with a Free List latitude. 
To Richardson's Stage Dramas, 
Dio — and Cosmo — ramas, 
Giants and Indians wild, 
Dwarf, Sea Bear, and Fat Child, 

And that most rare of Shows — a Show of Gratitude ! 



ODE TO THE CAMELOPARD. 

Welcome to Freedom's birthplace — and a den 1 

Great Anti-climax, hail ! 
So very lofty in thy front — ])ut then 

So dwindling at the tail ! — 
In truth, thou hast the most unequal legs ! 
Has one pair gallopped, whilst the other trotted, 
Along with other brethren, leopard-spotted. 
O'er Afric sand, where ostriches lay eggs ? 
Sure thou wert caught in some hard up-hill chase, 
Those hinder heels still keeping thee in check ! 

And yet thou seem'st prepared in any case, 

Tho' they had lost the race, 
To win it by a neck ! 

That lengthy neck — how like a crane's it looks ! 

Art thou the overseer of all the brutes ? 

Or dost thou browse on tip-top leaves or fruits — 

Or go a-birdnesting among the rooks ? 

How kindly nature caters for all wants ; 

Thus giving unto thee a neck that stretches. 

And high food fetches — 
To some a long nose, like the elephant's ! 



117 K TO THE CAMELO^RD. 103 

Oh ! hadst thou any organ to thy bellows, 
To turn thy breath to speech in liuman style, 

What secrets thou mightst tell us, 
Where now our scientific guesses fail ; 

For instance, of the Nile, 
Whether those Seven Mouths have any tail — 

Mayhap thy luck too, 
From that high head, as from a lofty hill, 
Has let thee see the marvellous Timbuctoo — 
Or drink of Niger at its infant rill ; 
What were the travels of our Major Denham, 

Or Clapperton to thine 

In that same line, 
If thou couldst only squat thee down and pen 'em ! 

Strange sights, indeed, thou must have overlooked, 
With eyes held ever in such vantage-stations ! 
Hast seen, perchance, unhappy white folks cooked, 
And then made free of negro corporations ! 
Poor wretches saved from cast-away three-deckers — 

By sooty wreckers — 
From hungry waves to have a loss still drearier, 
To far exceed the utmost aim of Park ! 
And find themselves, alas ! beyond the mark, 
In the ins ides of Africa's Interior ! 

Live on, Giraffe ! genteelest of raff kind ! 
Admired by noble, and by royal tongues ! 

May no pernicious wind, 
Or English fog, bhght thy exotic lungs ! 
Live on in happy peace, altho' a rarity, 
Nor envy thy poor cousin's more outrageous 

Parisian popularity ; — 
Whose very leopard-rash is grown contagious, 



104 ODE' TO DR. HAHNEMANN. 

And worn on gloves and ribbons all about, 

Alas ! the J "11 wear him out ! — 
So thou shalt take thy sweet diurnal feeds — 
When he is stuffed with undigested straw, 
Sad food that never visited his jaw ! 
And staring round him with a brace of beads ! 



ODE TO DR, HAHNEMANN, THE HOMCEOPATHIST. 

Well, Doctor, 
* Great concoctor 

Of medicines to help in man's distress ; 
Diluting down the strong to meek. 
And making ev'n the weak more weak, 

" Fine by degrees, and beautifully less" — 
Founder of a new svstem economic, 
To druggists any thing but comic ; 

Framed the whole race of Ollapods to fret, 

At profits, like thy doses, very small ; 

To put all Doctors' Boys in evil case, 

Thrown out of bread, of physic, and of place — 

And show us old Apothecaries' Hall 
'' To Let." 

How fare thy Patients ? are they dead or living, 
Or, well as can expected be, with such 
A style of practice, liberally giving 

" A sum of more to that which had too much ?" 

Dost thou preserve the human frame, or turf it ? 

Do thorough draughts cure thorough colds or not? 
Do fevers yield to any thing that 's hot? 

Or hearty dinners neutralize a surfeit ? 



ODE TO DR. HAHNEMANN. 105 

Is "t good advice for gastronomic ills, 
When Indigestion's face with pain is crumpling, 
To cry, ' ' Discard those Peristaltic Pills, 
Take a hard dumpling?" 

Tell me, thou German Cousin, 
And tell me honestly without a diddle, 
Does an attenuated dose of rosin 
Act as a tonic on the old Scotch fiddle? 
Tell me, when Anhalt-Coethen babies wriggle, 

Like eels just caught by sniggle. 
Martyrs to some acidity internal, 

That gives them pangs infernal, 
Meanwhile the lip grows black, the eye enlarges ; 
Say, comes there all at once a cherub-calm, 
Thanks to that soothing homoeopathic balm. 
The half of half, of half, a drop of ''varges?''^ 

Suppose, for instance, upon Leipzig's plain, 
A soldier pillowed on a heap of slain, 
In urgent want both of a priest and proctor ; 
When lo ! there comes a man m green and red, 
A featherless cocked-hat adorns his head, 
In short, a Saxon military doctor — 
Would he, indeed, on the right treatment fix. 
To cure a horrid gaping wound. 
Made by a ball that v^eighed a pound. 
If he well peppered it with number six ? 

Suppose a felon doomed to swing 

Within a rope^ 

Might friends not hope 
To cure him with a string? 



106 ODE TO DR. HAHNEMANN. 

Suppose his breath arrived at a full stop, 
The shades of death in a black cloud before him, 
Would a quintillionth dose of the New Drop 
Restore him ? 

Fancy a man gone rabid from a bite, 

Snapping to left and right, 
And giving tongue like one of Sebright' s hounds, 

Terrific sounds, 
The pallid neighborhood with horror cowing, 
To hit the proper homoeopathic mark ; 
Now. might not " the last taste in life" oibark^ 

Stop his hoiD-wow-ing ? 
Nay, with a well-known remedy to fit him, 
Would he not mend, if, with all proper care, 

He took ' ' a hair 
Of the dog that bit him?^^ 

Picture a man — we '11 say a Dutch ^leinheer — 

In evident emotion, 
Bent o'er the bulwark of the Batavier, 

Owning those symptoms queer — 
Some feel in a Sick Transit o'er the ocean, 
Can any thing in life be more pathetic 
Than when he turns to us his wretched face ? — 

But would it mend his case 

To be decillionth-dosed 

With something like the ghost 
Of an emetic? 

Lo ! now a darkened room ! 

Look through the dreary gloom, 
And see that coverlet of wildest form, 
Tost like the billows in a storm, 



OBE TO DR. HAHNEMANN. 107 

WhciG ever and anon, with groans, emerges 

A ghastlj head ! — 
AVhile two impatient arms still beat the bed, 
Like a strong swimmer's struggling with the surges ; 
There Life and Death are on their battle-plain, 
With many a mortal ecstasy of pain — 
"What shall support the body in its trial, 
Cool the hot blood, wild dream, and parching skin, 
And tame the raging Malady within — 
A sniff of Next-to-Nothing in a phial ? 

Oh ! Doctor Hahnemann, if here I laugh 

And cry together, half and half, 
Excuse me, 'tis a mood the subject brings. 
To think, whilst I have crowed like chanticleer, 
Perchance, from some dull eye the hopeless tear 
Hath gushed with my light levity at schism. 

To mourn some Martyr of Empiricism : 
Perchance, upon thy system, I have given 
A pang, superfluous, to the pains of Sorrow, 
Who weeps with Memory from morn till even ; 
Where comfort there is none to lend or borrow, 

Sighing to one sad strain, 

" She will not come again. 
To-morrow, nor to-morrow, nor to-morrow !" 

Doctor, forgive me, if I dare prescribe 
A rule for thee thyself, and all thy tribe, 
Inserting a few serious words by stealth ; 

Above all price of weallh 
The Body's Jewel — not for minds profane^ 
Or hands, to tamper with in practice vai?i— 
Like to a Woman's Virtue is Man's Health. 



108 ODE TO DR. HAHNEMANN. 

A heavenly gift witliin a holy shrine I 
To be cvpproached and touched loith serious fear^ 
By hands made pure ^ and hearts of faith severe, 
Ev^ n as the Priesthood of the ONE divine ! 

But, zounds ! each fellow with a suit of black, 

And, strange to fame, 

With a diploma' d name. 
That carries two more letters pick-a-back. 
With cane, and snuffbox, powdered wig, and block, 
Invents his dose, as if it were a chrism, 
And dares to treat our wondrous mechanism 
Familiar as the works of old Dutch clock ; 
Yet, how would common sense esteem the man, 
Oh how, my unrelated German cousin, 
Who having some such time-keeper on trial. 
And finding it too fast, enforced the dial. 
To strike upon the Homoeopathic plan 

Of fourteen to the dozen ? 

Take mj advice, 'tis given without a fee. 

Drown, drown your book ten thousand fathoms deep, 

Like Prospero's, beneath the briny sea, 

For spells of magic have all gone to sleep ! 

Leave no decillionth fragment of your works 

To help the interest of quacking Burkes ; 

Aid not in murdering even widows' mites — 

And now forgive me for my candid zeal, 

I had not said so much, but that I feel 

Should you take ill what here my Muse indites, 

An Ode-ling more will set you all to rights. 



ODE FOR ST. CECILIA'S EVE. ' 109 

ODE FOR ST. CECILIA'S KVE.' 

"Look out for squalls." — The Pilot. 

COME, dear Barney Isaacs, come, 
Punch for one night can spare his drum 

As well as pipe's of Pan ! 
Forget not, Popkins, your bassoon, 
Nor, Mister Bray, your horn, as soon 

As you can leave the Van ; 
Blind Billy, bring your violin ; 
Miss Crow, you 're great in Cherry Bipe 1 
And Chubb, your viol must drop ii? 
Its bass to Soger Tommy's pipe. 

Ye butchers, bring your bones r 
An organ would not be amiss ; 
If grinding Jim has spouted his. 

Lend your's, good Mister Jone^ 
Do, hurdy-gurdy Jenny — do 
Keep sober for an hour or two, 
Music's charms to help to paint 
And, Sandy Gray, if you should not 
Your bagpipes bring — tuneful Scg^ ' 
Conceive the feelings of the Saint ' 

Miss Strummel issues an invite. 
For music, and turn-out to night 
In honor of Cecilia's session: 
But ere you go, one moment stop, 
And with all kindness let me drop 
A hint to you and your profession. 
Imprimis then : Pray keep within 
The bounds to which your skill was borr^ 



110 ' ODE FOR ST. Cecilia's eve. 

Let the one-handed let alone Trombone, 
Don't — Rheumatiz ! seize the violin, 
Or Ashmj snatch the horn ! 
Don't ever to such rows give birth, 
As if you had no end on earth 
Except to " wake the Ijre ;" 
Don't " strike the harp," pray never do, 
Till others long to strike it too, 
Perpetual harping' s apt to tire; 
Oh I have heard such flat-and-sharpers, 
I 've blest the head 
Of good King Ned, 
For scragging all those old Welsh Harpers 1 

Pray, never, ere each tuneful doing, 
Take a prodigious deal of wooing ; 
And then sit down to thrum the strain, 
As if you 'd never rise again — 
The least Cecilia-like of things ; 
Remember that the Saint has wino-s. 
I've known Miss Strummel pause an hour, 
Ere she could " Pluck the Fairest Flower," 
Yet without hesitation, she 
Plunged next into the " Deep, Deep Sea," 
And when on the keys she does begin. 
Such awful torments soon you share. 
She really seems like Milton's " Sin," 
Holding the keys of — you know where 1 

Never tweak people's ears so toughly, 
That urchin-like they caat help saying — 
" dear ! dear — you call this playing, 
But oh, it's playing very roughly !" 
Oft, in the ecstacy of pain, 



OI)E FOR ST. CECILIA'S EVE. Ill 

I 've cursed all instrumental workmen. 



"■J 



Wished Broadwood Thurtelled in a lane, 
And Kirke White's fate to every Kirkman — 
I really once delighted spied 
*' Clementi Collard" in Cheapside. 

Another word — don't be surprised, 
Revered and ragged street Musicians, 
You have been only half-baptised, 
And each name proper, or improper. 
Is not the value of a copper. 
Till it has had the due additions, 
Husky, Rusky, 
Ninny, Tinny, 
Hummel, Bummel, 
Bowski, Wowski, 
All these are very good selectables ; 
But none of your plain pudding-and- tames — 
Folks that are called the hardest names 
Are music's most respectables. 
Ev'ry woman, ev'ry man. 
Look as foreign as you can, 
Don't cut your hair, or wash your skin, 
Make ugly faces and begin. 

Each Dingy OVpheus gravely hears. 
And now to show they understand it ! 
Miss Crow her scrannel throttle clears, 
And all the rest prepare to band it. 
Each scraper ripe for concertante, 
Rozins the hair of Rozinante : 
Then all sound A, if they know which, 
That they may join like birds in June : 
Jack Tar alone neglects to tune. 
For he 's all over concert-pitch. 



112 ODE FOR ST. CECILIA'S EVE. 

A little prelude goes before, 

Like a knock and ring at music's door, 

Each instrument iirives in its name ; 

Then sitting in 

Thej all begin 
To play a musical round game. 
Scrapenberg, as the eldest hand, 
Leads a first fiddle to the band, 

A second follows suit ; 
Anon the ace of Horns comes plump 
On the two fiddles with a trump ; 

Puffindorf plays a flute. 
This sort of musical revoke, 
The grave bassoon begins to smoke, 
And in rather grumpy kind 
Of tone begins to speak its mind ; 
The double drum is next to mix. 
Playing the Devil on Two Sticks — 

Clamor, clamor. 

Hammer, hammer. 
While now and then a pipe is heard, 
Insisting to put in a word 

With all his shrilly best ; 
So to allow the little minion 
Time to deliver his opinion. 
They take a few bars rest. 

Well, little Pipe begins — with sole 
/^nd small voice going thro' the hohj 

Beseeching, 

Preaching, 

Squealing, 

Appealing, 



ODE FOR ST. CECILIA'S EVE. 113 

Now as high as he can go, 

Now in language rather low, 

And having done — begins once more, 

Verbatim what he said before. 

This twiddling-twaddling sets on fire 

All the old instrumental ire. 

And fiddles, for explosion ripe. 

Put out the little squeaker's pipe ; 

This wakes bass viol — and viol for that 

Seizing on innocent little B flat, 

Shakes it like terrier shaking a rat — 

Thej all seem miching malico ! 
To judge from a rumble unawares, 
The drum has had a pitch down stairs ; 
And the trumpet rash, 
Bj a violent crash. 
Seems splitting somebody's calico ! 
The viol too groans in deep distress, 
As if he suddenly grew sick ; 
And one rapid fiddle sets ofi* express — 

Hurrying, 

Scurrying, 

Spattering, 

Clattering, 
To fetch him a Doctor of Music. 
This tumult sets the Haut-boy crying 
Beyond the Piano's pacifying. 

The cymbal 

Gets nimble, 

Triangle 

Must wrangle, 
The band is becoming most martial of bands, 
YOii. n. 8 



il4 ODE TO ST. CECILIA'S EVE. 

When just in the middle, 
A quakerlj fiddle, 
Proposes a general shaking of hands ! 
Quaking, 
Shaking, 
Quivering, 
Shivering, 
Long bow — short bow — each bow drawing : 

Some like filing — some like sawing ; 
At last these agitations cease. 
And they all get 
The flageolet, 
To breathe " a piping time of peace.'' 

Ah, too deceitful charm, 
Like lightning before death, 
For Scrapenberg to rest his arm, 
And Puffindorf get breath ! 
Again without remorse or pitj, 
Thej play " The Storming of a City," 
Miss S. herself composed and planned it — 
When lo ! at this renewed attack. 
Up jumps a little man in black — 
*' The very Devil cannot stand it !" 

And with that, 

Snatching hat, 

(Not his own,) 

Ofi" is flown, 

Thro' the door. 

In his black, 

To come back. 
Never, never, never, more ! 



ODE TO MADAME IIENGLER. 115 

Oh Music ! praises thou hast had, 

From Drjden and from Pope, 
Por thj good notes, yet none I hope, 

But I, e'er praised the bad, 
Yet are not saint and sinner even ? 
Miss Strummel on Cecilia's level ? 
One drew an angel down from heaven ! 
The other scared away the Devil ! 



ODE TO MADAME HEN'GLER, 

FIREWORK-JIAKER TO VAUXHALL. 

Oh, Mrs. Hengler ! — Madame — I beg pardon, 
Starry Enchantress of the Surrey Garden ! 
Accept an Ode not meant as any scoff — 
The Bard were bold indeed at thee to quiz, 
Whose squibs are far more popular than his ; 
Whose works are much more certain to go off. 

Great is thy fame, but not a silent fame ; 
With many a bang the public ear it courts ; 
And yet thy arrogance we never blame, 
But take thy merits from thy own reports. 
Thou hast indeed the most indulgent backers, 
We make no doubting, misbelieving comments, 
Even in thy most bounceable of moments ; 
But lend our ears implicit to tliy crackers ! — 
Strange helps to thy applause too arc not missing, 

Thy Rockets raise thee. 

And Serpents praise thee. 
As none beside are ever praised — by hissing ! 



116 ODE TO MADAME IIENGLER. 

Mistress of Hjdropyrics, 
Of glittering Pindarics, Sapphics, Lyrics, 
Professor of a Fiery Necromancy, 
Oddly thou charmest the politer sorts 

With midnight sports. 
Partaking very much of flash and fancy ! 

What thoughts had shaken all 
In olden time at thy nocturnal revels — 

Each brimstone ball 
They would have deemed an eyeball of the Devil's ! 
But now thy flaming Meteors cause no fright ; 
A modern Hubei^t to the royal ear, 
Might whisper without fear, 
" My Lord, they say there were five moons to-night !" 
Nor would it raise one superstitious notion 
To hear the whole description fairly out : — 
" One fixed — which t'other four whirled round about 
With wond'rous motion." 

Such are the very sights 
Thou workest, Queen of Fire, on earth and heaven, 
Between the hours of midnight and eleven, 
Turnino; our Eno-lish to Arabian Nisrhts, 
With blazing mounts, and founts, and scorching dragons, 

Blue stars and white. 

And blood-red light, 
And dazzling Wheels fit for Enchanters' wagons. 
Thrice lucky woman ! doing things that be 
With other folks past benefit of parson ; 
For burning, no Burn's Justice falls on thee, 
Altho' night after night the public see 
Thy Yauxhall palaces all end in Arson ! 



ODE TO MADAME HENGLER. 117 

Sure thou wast never born 
Like old Sir Hugh, with water in thy head, 

Nor lectured night and morn 
Of sparks and flames to have an awful dread, 
Allowed by a prophetic dam and sire 

To play with fire. 
didst thou never, in those days gone by. 
Go carrying about — no schoolboy prouder — 
Instead of waxen doll a little Guy ; 
Or in thy pretty pyrotechnic vein, 
Up the parental pigtail lay a train, 

To let off all his powder ! 

Full of the wildfire of thy youth, 

Did'st never in plain truth, 
Plant whizzing Flowers in thy mother's pots, 
Turning the garden into powder plots ? 

Or give the cook, to fright her. 
Thy paper sausages well stuffed with nitre ? 
Nay, wert thou never guilty, now, of dropping 
A lighted cracker by thy sister's Dear, 

So that she could not hear \ 

The question he was popping ? 

Go on, Madame ! Go on — be bright and busy 
While hoaxed Astronomers look up and stare 
From tall observatories, dumb and dizzy, 
To see a Squib in Cassiopeia's Chair ! 
A Serpent wriggling into Charles's Wain ! 
A Roman Candle lighting the Great Bear ! 
A Eocket tangled in Diana's train. 
And Crackers stuck in Berenice's Hair ! 



118 ODE TO MR. MALTHUS. 

There is a King of Fire — Thou shouldst be Queen ! 
Methinks a good connection might come from it • 
Could' st thou not make him^ in the garden scene, 
Set out per Rocket and return per Comet ; 

Then give him a hot treat 
Of Pjrotechnicals to sit and sup, 
Lord ! how the world would throng to see him eat, 
He swallowing fire, w hile thou dost throw it up ! 

One solitary night — true is the story, 
Watching those forms that Fancy will create 
Within the bright confusion of the grate, 
I saw a dazzling countenance of glory ! 

Oh Dei gratias ! 

That fiery facias 
'T was thine, Enchantress of the Surrey Grove ; 

And ever since that night, 

In dark and bright, 
Thy face is registered within my stove ! 

Long may that starry brow enjoy its rays 
May no untimely bloio its doom forestall ; 
But when old age prepares the friendly pall, 
When the fast spark of all thy sparks decays, 
Then die lamented by good people all. 

Like Goldsmith's Madam Blaize ! 



ODE TO MR. MALTHUS.* 

My dear, do pull the bell. 
And pull it well. 
And send those noisy children all up stairs, 
Now playing here like bears — 



ODE TO MR. MALTllUS. 11<J 

You George, and William, go iiito tiie grounds, 

Charles, James, and Bob are there — and take your string, 

Drive horses, or fly kites, or any thing, 
You 're quite enough to play at hare and. hounds — 
You little May.^ and Caroline, and Poll, 

Take each your doll, 
And go, my dears, into the two-back pair, 
Your sister Margaret 's there — 
Harriet and Grace, thank God, are both at school. 
At far off Ponty Pool — 
I want to read, but really can't go on — 
Let the four twins, Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, 
Go — to their nursery — go — I never can 
Enjoy my Malthus among such a clan ! 

Oh Mr. Malthus, I agree 

In every thing I read with thee ! 

The world's too full, there is no doubt, 

And wants a deal of thinning out — 

It's plain — as plain as Harrow's Steeple — 

And I agree Avith some thus far. 

Who say the Queen's too popular, 

That is — she has too many people. 
There are too many of all trades, 
Too many bakers. 

Too many every-thing makers. 

But not too many undertakers — 
Too many boys — 

Too many hobby-de-hoys — 
Too many girls, men, widows, wives, and maids — 
There is a dreadful surplus to demolish, 

And yet some Wrongheads, 

With thick not long heads, 



120 ODE TO MR. MALTHUS. 

Poor metaphysicians ! 
Sign petitions 
Capital punishment to abolish ; 
And in the face of censuses, such vast ones. 
New hospitals contrive, 
For keeping life alive, 
Laying first stones, the dolts ! instead of last ones !- 
Others, again, in the same contrariety. 
Deem that of all Humane Society 

They really deserve thanks. 
Because the two banks of the Serpentine, 
By their design, 
Are Saving Banks. 
Oh ! were it given but to me to weed 
The human breed, 
And root out here and there some cumbering elf, 
I think I could go through it. 
And really do it 
With profit to the world and to myself — 
For instance, the unkind among the Editors, 
My debtors, those I mean to say 
Who cannot or wl^o will not pay, 

And all my creditors, 
These, for my own sake, I 'd destroy ; 
But for the world's, and every one's, 
I 'd hoe up Mrs. G — 's two sons, 
And Mrs. B — 's big little boy. 
Called only by herself an " only joy." 
As Mr. Irving' s chapel 's not too full, 
Himself alone I 'd pull — 
But for the peace of years that have to run, 
I 'd make the Lord Mayor's a perpetual station, 
And put a period to rotation, 



ODE TO MR. MALTHUS. 121 

By rooting up all Aldermen but one — 
These are but hints what good might thus be done ! 

But ah ! I fear the public good 

Is little by the public understood — 
For instance — if with flint, and steel, and tinder, 
Great Swing, for once a philanthropic man, 
Proposed to throw a light upon thy plan, 
No doubt some busy fool would hinder 
His burning all the Foundling to a cinder. 

Or, if the Lord Ma,yor, on an Easter Monday, 

That w^ine and bun-day, 
Proposed to poison all the little Blue-coats, 
Before they died by bit or sup. 
Some meddling Marplot would blow up, 

Just at the moment critical. 

The economy political 
Of saving their fresh yellow plush and new coats. 

Equally 't would be undone. 
Suppose the Bishop Of London, 
On that great day 
In June or May, 
When all the large small family of charity, 

Brown, black, or carrotty, 
Walk in their dusty parish shoes, 
In too, too many two-and-twos. 
To sing together till they scare the walls 

Of old St. Paurs, 
Sitting in red, grey, green, blue, drab, and white, 
Some say a gratifying sight, 
Tho' I think sad — but that 's a schism — 
To witness so much pauperism — 



122 ODE TO ST. SWITHIN. 

Suppose, I say, the Bishop then, to make 
In this poor overcrowded world more room, 

Proposed to shake 
Down that immense extinguisher, the dome — 
Some humane Martin in the charity Gal-wsij 

I fear would come and interfere. 

Save beadle, brat, and overseer. 

To walk back in their parish shoes, 

In too, too many two-and-twos, 
Islington — Wapping — or Pall Mall way ! 

Thus, people hatched from goose's egg, 

Foolishly think a pest a plague. 

And in its face their doors all shut, 

On hinges oiled with cajeput — 

Drugging themselves with drams well spiced and cloven, 

And turning pale as linen rags 

At hoisting up of yellow flags, 
While you and I are crying " Orange Boven !" 
Why should we let precautions so absorb us, 
Or trouble shipping with a quarantine — 
When if I understand the thing you mean, 
We ought to import the Cholera Morbus ! 



ODE TO ST. SWITHIN.* 

"The rain it raineth every day." 

The Dawn is overcast, the morning lowers, 
On ev'ry window -frame hang beaded damps 
Like rows of small illumination lamps. 
To celebrate the Jul)ilee of Showers ! 



OBE TO ST. SWITHIN. 12S 

A constant sprinkle patters from all leaves, 
The very Dryads are not dry, but soppers, 

And from the Houses' eaves 

Tumble eaves -droppers. 

The hundred clerks that live along the street, 
Bondsmen to mercantile and city schemers, 
With squashing, sloshing, and galloshing feet. 
Go paddling, paddling through the wet, like steamers, 
Each hurrying to earn the daily stipend — 
Umbrellas pass of every shade of green, 
And now and then a crimson one is seen. 
Like an Umbrella r^iperied. 

Over the way a wagon 
Stands with six smoking horses, shrinking, blinking, 

While in the George and Drao-on 
The man is keeping himself dry — and drinking ! 
The Butcher's boy skulks underneath his tray. 

Hats shine — shoes don't — and down droop collars, 
And one blue Parasol cries all the way 

To school, in company with four small scholars ! 

Unhappy is the man to-day who rides. 
Making his journey sloppier, not shorter ; 
Ay, there they go, a dozen of outsides. 
Performing on "a Stage with real water !" 
A dripping Pauper crawls along the way, 

The only real willing out-of-doorer, 

And says, or seems to say, 
'' Well, I am poor enough — but here 's a j^ourer /" 

The scene in water colors thus I paint, 
Is your own Festival, you Sloppy Saint ! 



124 ODE TO ST. SWITHIN. 

Mother of all the Family of Rainers ! 

Saint of the Soakers ! 

Making all people croakers, 
Like frogs in swampy marshes, and complainers ! 
And why you mizzle forty days together. 
Giving the earth your water-soup to sup, 
I marvel — Why such wet, mysterious weather ? 

I wish you 'd clear it zip ! 

Why cast such cruel dampers 
On pretty Pic Nics, and "against all wishes 
Set the cold ducks a-swimming in the hampers, 
And volunteer, unasked, to w^ash the dishes ? 
Why drive the Nymphs from the selected spot, 

To cling like lady-birds around a tree — 

Why spoil a Gipsy party at their tea. 
By throwing your cold water upon hot ? 

Cannot a rural maiden, or a man. 

Seek Hornsey-Wood by invitation, sipping 

Their green with Pan, 
But souse you come, and show their Pan all dripping ! 
Why upon snow-white table-cloths and sheets. 
That do not wait or want a second washing, 

Come squashing ? 
Why task yourself to lay the dust in streets, 
As if there were no Water- Cart contractors, 
No pot-boys spilling beer, no shop-boys ruddy 

Spooning out puddles muddy, 
Milkmaids, and other slopping benefactors ! 

A Queen you are, raining in your own right, 
Yet oh ! how little flattered by report ! 

Even by those that seek the Court, 
Pelted with every term of spleen and spite. 



ODE FOR THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER. 125 

Folks rail and swear at jou in every place ; 
They saj you are a creature of no bowel ; 
They say you 're always washing Nature's face, 
And that you then supply her 
With nothing drier 
Than some old wringing cloud by way of towel \ 
The whole town wants you ducked, just as you duck it, 
They wish you on your own mud porridge suppered, 
They hope that you may kick your own big bucket, 
Or in your water-butt go souse ! heels up'ard ! 
They are, in short, so weary of your drizzle, 
They 'd spill the water in your veins to stop it — 
Be warned ! You are too partial to a mizzle — 
Pray drop it ! 



ODE FOR THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER/ 

LuD ! Lud ! Lud ! 
I mean, of course, that venerable town 
Mentioned in stories of renown, 

Built formerly of mud ; — 
Lud, I say, why didst thou e'er 

Invent the office of a Mayor, 
An office that no useful purpose crowns, 
But to set Aldermen against each other, 
That should be Brother unto Brother- 
Sisters at least, by virtue of their gowns? 

But still if one must have a Mayor 
To fill the Civic chair, 
Lud, I say, 
Was there no better day 



126 ODE FOE, THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER. 

To fix on, than November Ninth so shivery 
And dull for showing off the Livery's livery? 
Dimming, alas ! 
The Brazier's brass. 
Soiling th' Embroiderers and all the Saddlers, 
Sopping the Furriers, 
Draggling the Curriers, 
And making Merchant Tailors dirty paddlers ; 
Drenching the Skinners' Company to the skin, 
Making the crusty Yintner chiller, 
And turning the Distiller 
To cold without instead of warm within ; — 
Spoiling the bran-new beavers 
Of Wax-chandlers and AYeavers, 

Plastering the Plasterers and spotting Mercers, 
Hearty November-cursors — 
And showing Cordwainers and dapper Drapers 
Sadly in want of brushes and of scrapers ; 
Making the Grocer's company not fit 

For company a bit ; 
Dying the Dyers with a dingy flood, 
Daubing incorporated Bakers, 
And leading the Patten-makers, 
Over their very pattens in the mud — 
Lud ! Lud ! Lud ! 

" This is a sorry sight," 
To quote Macbeth — but oh, it grieves me quite, 
To see your Wives and Daughters in their plumes — 

White plumes not white — 
Sitting at open windows catching rheums, 

Not " Ano^els ever brio;ht and fair," 

But angels ever brown and sallow, 



ODE FOR THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER. 127 

With ejes — you cannot see above one pair, 

For city clouds of black and yellow — 
And artificial flowers, rose, leaf, and bud, 

Such sable lilies 

And grim daffodilies 
Drooping, but not for drought, Lud ! Lud ! 

I may as well, wdiile I 'm inclined. 
Just go through all the faults I find : 

Oh Lud ! then, with a better air, say June, 
Could' st thou not find a better tune 
To sound with trumpets, and with drums, 
Than '' See the Conquering Hero comes," 

When he who comes ne'er dealt in blood ? 
Thy May'r is not a War Horse, Lud, 
That ever charged on Turk or Tartar, 
And yet upon a march you strike 
That treats him like — 
A little French if I may martyr — 
Lewis Cart-Horse or Henry Carter ! 

Lud ! I say 

Do change your day 

To some time when your Show can really show ; 

When silk can seem like silk, and gold can glow. 
Look at your Sweepers, how they shine in May ( 
Have it when there 's a sun to gild the coach, 
And sparkle in tiara — bracelet — broocli — 

Diamond — or paste — of sister, mother, daughter ; 
When grandeur really may be grand — 
But if thy Pageant's thus obscured by land — 

Lud ! it 's ten times worse upon the water ! 
Suppose, Lud, to show its plan, 
I call, like Blue Beard's wife, to sister Anne, 



128 ODE FOR THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER. 

Who "s gone to Beaufort Wharf with niece and aunt, 
To see what she can see — and what she can't ; 
Chewing a saifron bun by way of cud, 
To keep the fog out of a tender lung, 
While perched in a verandah nicely hung 
Over a margin of thy own black mud, 
Lud ! 

Now Sister Anne, I call to thee. 
Look out and see : 
Of course about the bridge you view them rally 

And sally, 
With many a wherry, sculler, punt, and cutter ; 
The Fishmongers' grand boat, but not for butter, 

The Goldsmiths' glorious galley — 
Of course you see the Lord Mayor's coach aquatic, 
With silken banners that the breezes fan, 
In gold all glowing. 
And men in scarlet rowing, 
Like Doge of Venice to the Adriatic ; 
Of course you see all this, Sister Anne ? 
" No, I see no such thing ! 
I only see the edge of Beaufort Wharf, 
With two coal lighters fastened to a ring ; 

And, dim as ghosts. 
Two little boys are jumping over posts ; 

And something, farther off, 
That's rather like the shadow of a dog. 

And all beyond is fog. 
If there be any thing so fine and bright, 
To see it I must see by second sight. 
Call this a Show ? It is not worth a pin .' 
I see no barges row, 
No banners blow ; 



ODE FOR THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER. 129 

The Show is merely a gallanty-show, 
Without a lamp or any candle in." 

But sister Anne, my dear, 
Although you cannot see, you still may hear ? 
Of course you hear, I 'm very sure of that, 
The " Water parted from the Sea" in C, 
Or "Where the Bee sucks," set in B; 
Or Huntsman's chorus from the Freyschutz frightful, 
Or Handel's Water Music in A flat. 
Oh music from the water comes delightful ! 
It sounds as no where else it can : 
You hear it first 
In some rich burst, 
Then faintly sighing, 
Tenderly dying. 
Away upon the breezes, Sister Anne. 

" There is no breeze to die on ; 
And all their drums and trumpets, flutes and harps, 
Could never cut their way with ev'n three sharps 

Through such a fog as this, you may rely on. 
I think, but am not sure, I hear a hum, 

Like a very muffled double drum, 

And then a something faintly shrill, 

Like Bartlemy Fair's old buz at Pentonville. 

And now and then hear a pop, 

As if from Pedley's Soda Water shop. 
I 'm almost ill with the strong scent of mud, 

And, not to mention sneezing, 

My cough is, more than usual, teasing ; 
I really fear that I have chilled my blood, 
OLud! OLud! OLud! OLud! OLudI" 



VOL. II. 



130 ODE TO SIR JOHN BOWRINQ. 



ODE TO SIR JOHN BOWRING. 

To Bowring, man of many tongues, 
(All over tongues like rumor,) 
This tributary verse belongs, 
To paint his learned humor ; 
All kinds of gabs he talks, I wis, 
From Latin down to Scottish ; 
As fluent as a parrot is. 
But far more PoZ/^-glottish ! 
No grammar too abstruse he meets. 
However dark and verby, — 
♦He gossips Greek about the streets. 
And often Russ — in urbe : — 
Strange tongues whate'er you do them call, 
In short, the man is able 
To tell you what 's d^ clock in all 
The dialects of Babel. 
Take him on 'Change ; try Portuguese, 
The Moorish and the Spanish, 
Polish, Hungarian, Tyrolese, 
The Swedish and the Danish ; 
Try him with these and fifty such, 
His skill will ne'er diminish, 
Although you should begin in Dutch 
And end (like me) in Finnish. 



NOTES. 



NOTES. 



(1.) Ode TO M. Brunel. 

Mr. Brunei was an engineer who had been very successful in contriv- 
ing tUe machinery for the manufacture of blocks for the Koyal Navy, 
at Portsmouth , and in the bubble-time of 1825, or thereabouts, got up 
a company for tdnnelling the Thames. The plan was ingeniously de- 
vised, and in the course of some ten years was executed. It was a very 
expensive operation, however, and as a speculation an entire failure. 
At one time during the jDrogress of the work, the water found its way 
through an unexpected breach in the bottom of the river, when Brunei 
the younger (now an eminent engineer) barely escaped with his life. 
He owed his safety entirely to his great skill in swimming, 

(2.) Ode to the Advocates for the Removal of Smithfield 

Market. 

Smithfield was made the seat of the sole cattle market for the city 
of London by Edward III. in the year 1327, and has remained such till 
the present day. The market is an open area, in the form of an irregu- 
lar polygon ; containing only about three and a half acres, for the accom- 
modation of the largest city in tlie world, in its supplies of sheep, horses, 
cattle and hay. An attempt was made some years ago to remove it to 
the outskirts of London, but it cost the opulent projector an hundred 
thousand pounds, and failed. The city itself was foiled in two efforts 
to make the removal — one of wliich probably inspired the ode above 
entitled. The annual cattle show of the Smithfield Club is still held, 
and the horse market still enjoys tlie same reputation as in Shak- 
speare's time, and for centuries before. 

Smithfield is famous in history for its jousts, touruameuts, executions 



134 NOTES. 

aud burnings. Here Wallace and Mortimer were executed, and Wat 
Tyler was slain. 

Smithfield was the seat of the long-famous Bartholomew Fair, which 
was proclaimed by the Lord Mayor annually on the 3d of September, 
unless the 3d fell on Sunday, aud continued for three days, exclusive of 
the day of proclamation. In Ben Jonson's celebrated play of that 
name, there is a picture of what Bartholomew Fair was in 1614 ; and 
in Hone's Every-Day Book we have a very detailed report of the 
editor's personal observation- of the same scene in 1825. It had its 
origin in a grant of King Henry II. to the Priory of St. Bartholomew, 
which had been founded in Smithfield, in connection with a church and 
hospital, about the year 1102, by one Rahere, a minstrel of the King, 
and a " pleasant-witted gentleman," who was the first Prior of his 
monastery. 

The royal privilege extended to three days at the Bartholomew-tide 
for a fair, " to the which," says Stow, " the clothiers of England and 
the drapers of London repaired, and had their booths and standings 
within the churchyard of this priory, closed in with walls and gates 
locked every night, and watched for safety of men's goods and wares ; 
a Court of Piepowders was daily during the fair holden for debts and 
contracts." This was the origin of this famous fair, over which the 
charter of Henry II. gave the Mayor and Aldermen criminal jurisdic- 
tion during its continuance. 

AU sorts of cheap shows and entertainments, dramatic, pictorial and 
zoological — dwarfs, fat boys and giants — learned pigs and horses — ^lions 
and elephants — feats of skill, strength and dexterity —jugglers and 
music-grinders — Punch and Judy — mermaids and wild Indians — beau- 
tiful dolphins and cannibal chiefs — harlequins and circus-riders — have 
for hundreds of years entertained our Anglo-Saxon brethren at Bartho- 
lomew Fair. Before the commencement of the last century it had 
become, however, a nuisance, and of late years it is described as a mere 
scene of annual debauchery. 

(3.) Ode for St. Cecilia's Eve (Nov. 22). 

Saint Cecilia is in the Church of England calendar and in the alma- 
nacs. She is a saint of the Romish Church, and a patroness of church 
music. Butler gives her life, from which we learn that she was mar- 
ried to a nobleman named Valerian, whom, with her brother Tibertius, 
she converted, and with them she was martyred. Various legends and 



NOTES. I?i5 

pictures represent her as engaged in music, or listening to it from celes- 
tial performers. Hence the conclusion of the celebrated ode of Dryden 
(who Avas a Catholic) — 

" She drew an Angel down." 

Tlie legend is that her husband, allured by the harmonious sounds, 
entered a room where she was sitting, and found a young man playino- 
on the organ. Cecilia introduced the visitor as an angel, and from that 
time she received " angels' visits." 

(4.) Ode to Mr. Malthus. 

Mr. Malthus was distinguished for the development of two new dis- 
coveries in Political Economy, those relating to population and rent. 
He published his Essay on Population in 1803, and his Principles of 
Political Economy in 1820. His favorite theory on population is ex- 
pressed in the formula that the prudential restraint upon marriage, 
from the fear of a family, is the most powerful check which in modern 
Europe " keeps down the population to the level of the means of sub- 
sistence." In other words, it is thus expressed by the Edinburgh, 
Review — " A man has no more right to set up a wife, unless he can 
afford it, than to set up a coach." 

(5.) Ode to St. Swithin. 

Swithin is still retained in the English almanacs, and his day (July 
15) at some public offices is a holiday. The saint was of noble parent- 
age, and became a monk in the old monastery at Winchester, of which 
he was afterwards priest and provost, and finally bishop, by the favor 
of his sometime pupil, King Ethelwolf, in 852. It was through his 
influence that tithes were established in England. He died in 862. An 
hundred years afterwards marvellous cures were wrought by his relics. 

There is an old adage—" If it rain on St. Swithin's day, there will 
be rain the next forty days afterwards." The tradition is, that the 
bishop desired to be buried in the open churchyard, and not in the 
chancel of the minster, and his request was complied with ; but the 
monks, on his being canonized by the Pope, thought it would not an- 
swer for a saint to lie in the open air, and resolved to remove the body 
into the choir, which was to have been done on the 15th of July. It 
rained so hard, however, on that day, and for forty days succeeding, 
that they abandoned their design as heretical, and erected a chapel over 
his grave. 



136 NOTES. 

Rain on St. Swithin's day is noticed in some places by the saying— 
•* St. Swithiu is christening the apples." 

Ben Jonson, Gay, Churchill, and other English poets, allude to the 
popular tradition connected with St. Swithin. 

In Poor Robin's Almanac for 1697, the saying and one of the miracles 
ascribed to the saint are thus alluded to : — 

" In this month is St. Swithin's day ; 
On which, if that it rain, they say 
Full forty days after it will, 
Or more or less, some rain distil. 
This Swithin was a saint, I trow, 
And Winchester's bishop also ; 
Who in his time did many a feat. 
As Popish legends do repeat : 
A woman having broke her eggs, 
By stumbling at another's legs, 
For which she made a woful cry ; 
St. Swithin chanced for to come by. 
Who made them all as sound, or more. 
Than that they ever were before. 
But whether they were so or no, 
'Tis more than you or I do know. 
Better it is to rise betime. 
And to make hay while the sun doth shine, 
Than to believe in tales and lies. 
Which idle monks and friars devise." 

(6.) Ode for the Ninth of November — Lord Mayor's Day. 

On this day there is a procession of the Mayor and Aldermen elect 
of London, from Guildhall to Westminster, to be sworn, and thence back 
to Guildhall to dinner. In old times it was an occasion of great splen- 
dor and pageantry. On Sir Thomas Middleton's mayoralty, in 1613, 
the solemnity is described as unparalleled for the art and magnificence 
of its pageantry and shows. The printed descriptions of these London 
Pageants, or Triumphs of the old time, are now extremely rare, and are 
sold at the rate of two or three guintms for a single leaf. 

In 1575, William Smythe, citizen and haberdasher of London, wrote 
a " brefFe description" of that royal city, which gives us an account of 
the ceremonies on the Lord Mayor's day in early times. " The day of 
St. Simon and St. Jude," he says, " the Mayor enters into his state and 
office. The next day he goes by water to Westminster in most triumph- 
ant-like manner, his barge being garnished with the arms of the city ; 
and near it a ship-boat of the Queen's Majesty, being trimmed up and 



NOTES. 137 

rigged like a ship of war, with clivers pieces of ordnance, standards, 
pennons, and targets of the proper arms of the said Mayor, of his com- 
pany, and of the merchants' adventurers, or of the staple, or of the com- 
pany of the new trades ; next before him goeth the barge of the livery 
of his own company, decked with their own proper arms ; then the 
bachelors' barge ; and so all the companies in Loudon, in order, every 
one having their own proper barge, with the arms of their company. 
And so passing along the Thames he landeth at Westminster, where he 
taketh his oath in the Exchequer before the Judge there ; which done, 
he returneth by water as aforesaid, and landeth at Paul's wharf, where 
he and the rest of the Aldermen take their horses, and in great pomp 

pass through the city to the Guildhall, where they dine that 

day to the number of 1,000 persons, all at the charge of the Mayor 
and the two Sheriffs. The feast costeth £400, whereof the Mayor payeth 
£200, and each of the Sheriffs £100." 

In the procession were some sixty or seventy poor men marching 
two and two, in blue gowns, with red sleeves and caps, every one bear- 
ing a pike and target, on which were painted the arms of all them that 
had been Mayors of the same company that the new Mayor was of. 

" Inmiediately after dinner they go to St. Paul's Church, every one 
of the aforesaid poor men bearing staff, torches and targets, which 
torches are lighted when it is late, before they come from evening 
prayer." 

In 1655, the city pageants, after a discontinuance of about fifteen 
years, were revived ; and Edward Glayton, the author of the description 
for that year, says, that " our metropolis for these planetary pageants 
was as famous and renowned in foreign nations as for faith, wealth, and 
valor." On Lord Mayor's day, 1671, the King, Queen, Duke of York, 
and most of the nobility, being present, there were " sundry shows, 
shapes, scenes, speeches, and songs in parts ;" and the like in 1672 and 
1673, when the King again " graced the triumphs." Again, the great 
persons of the realm were present in 1674, when there were " emblema- 
tical figures, artful pieces of architecture, and rural dancing, with pieces 
spoken in each pageant." 

The speeches in the pageants were usually composed by the official 
city poet, who also provided a printed programme for the members of 
the corporation. Settle was the last corporation poet, and wrote th(? 
last programme, intended for the show of 1708, w^ich was prevented 
by the death of the Prince of Denmark. 



138 NOTES. 

The modern exhibitions on Lord Mayor's day do not vie with those 
of the olden time. All that remains of the antique show is in the first 
part of the procession, where the poor men of the company to which 
the Lord Mayor belongs, or persons hired to represent them, are habited 
in long gowns and close caps of the company's color, and bear painted 
shields on their arms, but without javelins. So many of these head 
the show as there are years in the Lord Mayor's age. " Their obsolete 
costume and hobbling walk," says the author of the Every-Day Book, 
*' are sport for the unsedate, who, from improper tradition, year after 
year, are accustomed to call them ' old bachelors' — tongues less polite 
call them * old fogeys.' The numerous band of gentlemen-ushers, in 
velvet coats, wearing chains of gold, and bearing white staves, is re- 
duced to half a dozen full-dressed footmen, carrying umbrellas in their 
hands." 



TALES A?fD LEGENDS. 



TALES AND LEGENDS 



THE STAG-EYED LADY. 

A MOORISn TALE. 
Scheherazade immediately began the following story. 

Ali Ben Ali (did you never read 

His wondrous acts that chronicles relate — 

Ho¥^ there \7as one in pitj might exceed 
The sack of Troy ?) Magnificent he sate 

Upon the throne of greatness — great indeed. 
For those that he had under him were great — 

The horse he rode on, shod with silver nails, 

Was a Bashaw — Bashaws have horses' tails, 

Ali was cruel — a most cruel one ! 

'Tis rumored he had strangled his own mother — 
Howbeit such deeds of darkness he had done, 

'Tis thought he would have slain his elder brother 
And sister too — but happily that none 

Did live within harm's length of one another, 
Else he had sent the Sun in all its blaze 
To endless night, and shortened tlie Moon's days. 

Despotic power, that mars a weak man's wit. 
And makes a bad man — absolutely bad, 

Made Ali wicked — to a fault : — 'tis fit 

Monarchs should have some check-strings ; but he had 



142 THE STAG-EYED LADY. 

No curb upon his will — no, not a bit — 

Wherefore he did not reign well — and full glad 
His slaves had been to hang him — but thej faltered, 
And let him live unhanged — and still unaltered. 

Until he got a sage bush of a beard, 

Wherein an Attic owl might roost — a trail 

Of bristly hair — that, honored and unsheared 
Grew downward like old women and cow's tail : 

Being a sign of age — some gray appeared, 

Mingling with duskier brown its warnings pale ; 

But yet not so poetic as when Time 

Comes like Jack Frost, and whitens it in rime. 

Ben Ali took the hint, and much did vex 

His royal bosom that he had no son, 
No living child of the more noble sex. 

To stand in his Morocco shoes — not one 
To make a negro-pollard — or tread necks 

When he was gone — doomed, when his days were done, 
To leave the very city of his fame 
Without an Ali to keep up his name. 

Therefore he chose a lady for his love, 

Singling from out the herd one stag-eyed dear ; 

So called, because her lustrous eyes, above 
All eyes, were dark, and timorous, and clear ; 

Then, through his Muftis piously he strove. 

And drummed with proxy-prayers Mohammed's ear, 

Knowing a boy for certain must come of it, 

Or else he was not praying to his Profit. 

Beer will grow mothery^ and ladies fair 

Will grow like beer ; so did that stag-eyed dame : 



THE STAG-EYED LADY. 143 

Ben Ali, hoping for a son and heir, 

Boyed up his hopes, and even chose a name 

Of mighty hero that his child should bear : 
He made so certain ere his chicken came : 

But oh ! all worldly wit is little worth, 

Nor knoweth what to-morrow will bring forth. 

To-morrow came, and with to-morrow's sun 

A little daughter to this world of sins ; 
Miss-foYtnnes never come alone — so one 

Brought on another, like a pair of twins : 
Twins ! female twins ! — it was enough to stun 

Their little wits and scare them from their skins, 
To hear their father stamp, and curse and swear, 
Pulling his beard because he had no heir. 

Then strove their stag-eyed mother to calm down 
This his paternal rage, and thus addrest : 

Oh ! Most Serene ! why dost thou stamp and frown, 
And box the compass of thy royal chest ? 

Ah ! thou wilt mar that portly, trunk, I own 
I love to gaze on ! — Pr'ythee, thou hadst best 

Pocket thy fists. Nay, love, if you so thin 

Your beard, you '11 want a wig upon your chin! 

But not her words, or e'en her tears, could slack 
The quicklime of his rage, that hotter grew : 

He called his slaves to bring an ample sack 
Wherein a woman might be poked — a few 

Dark grimly men felt pity and looked black 
At this sad order ; but their slaveships knew 

When any dared demur, his sword so bending 

Cut off the '' head and front of their offending.'' 



144 .THE STAG-EYED LADY. 

For Ali had a sword, much like himself, 
A crooked blade, guiltj of human gore — 

The trophies it had lopped from many an elf 
Were stuck at his /iea6/-quarters bj the score — 

Nor yet in peace he laid it on the shelf, 
But jested with it, and his wit cut sore ; 

So that (as they of Public Houses speak) 

He often did his dozen hutts a week. 

Therefore his slaves, with most obedient fears, 
Came with tiie sack the lady to enclose ; 

In vain from her stag-eyes " the big round tears 
Coursed one another down her innocent nose;" 

In vain her tongue wept sorrow in their ears ; 
Though there were some felt willing to oppose. 

Yet when their heads came in their heads, that minu^ 

Though 'twas a piteous case, they put her in it. 

And when the sack was tied, some two or three 
Of these black undertakers slowly brought her 

To a kind of Moorish Serpentine ; for she 

Was doomed to have a winding sheet of water. 

Then farewell, earth — farewell to the green tree — 
Farewell, the sun — the moon — each little daughter ! 

She "s shot from off the shoulders of a black, 

Like a bag of Wall's End from a coalman's back. 

The waters oped, and the wide sack full-filled 
All that the waters oped, as down it fell ; 

Then closed the wave, and then the surface rilled 
A ring above her, like a water-knell ; 

A moment more, and all its face was stilled, 
And not a guilty heave was left to tell 

Thai underneath its calm and blue transparence 

A dame lay drowned in her sack, like Clarence. 



THE STAG-EYED LADY. 145 

But Heaven beheld, and awful witness bore, 
The moon in black eclipse deceased that nio-ht, 

Like Desdemona smothered by the ]\Ioor ; 
The lady's natal star with pale affright 

Fainted and fell — and what were stars before 
Turned comets as the tale was brought to light ; 

And all looked downward on the fatal wave, 

And made their own reflections on her grave. 

Next night, a head — a little lady head, 

Pushed through the waters a most glassy face, 

With weedy tresses, thrown apart and spread, 
Combed by 'live ivory, to show the space 

Of a pale forehead, and two eyes that shed 
A soft blue mist, breathing a bloomy grace 

Over their sleepy lids — and so she raised 

Her aqualine nose above the stream, and gazed. 

She oped her lips — lips of a gentle blush. 
So pale it seemed near drowned to a white — 

She oped her lips, and forth there sprang a gush 
Of music bubbling through the surface light; 

The leaves are motionless, the breezes hush 
To listen to the air — and through iilie night 

There came these words of a most plaintive ditty, 

Sobbing as they would break all hearts with pity : 

THE WATER PERI'S SONG. 

Farewell, farewell, to my mother's own daughter, 
The child that she wet-nursed is lapped m the wave 

The MussidmSiXi coming to fish in this water, 

Adds a tear to the flood that weeps over her grave. 

VOL.. II 10 



146 THE STAG-EYED LADY. 

• 
This sack is her coffin, this water's her bier, 

This grayish hath cloak is her funeral pall, 

And, stranger, stranger ! this song that you hear 

Is her epitaph, elegy, dirges, and all ' 

Farewell, farewell, to the child of Al Hassan, 

My mother's own daughter — the last of her race — 

She 's a corpse, the poor body ! and lies in this basin, 
And sleeps in the water that washes her face. 



A LEGEND OF NAVARRE. 



'T WAS in the reign of Lewis, called the Great, 
As one may read on his triumphal arches, 

The thing befell I 'm going to relate, 

Li course of one of those "pomposo" marches 

He loved to make, like any gorgeous Persian, 

Partly for war, and partly for diversion. 

Some wag had put it in the royal brain 

To drop a visit at an old chateau. 
Quite unexpected, with his courtly train ; 

The monarch liked it — but it happened so, 
That Death had got before them by a post, 
And they were " reckoning without their host.^^ 

Who died exactly as a child should die, 
Without one groan or a convulsive breath, 

Closing without one pang his quiet eye. 
Sliding composedly from sleep — to death ; 

A corpse so placid ne'er adorned a bed. 

He seemed not quite — but only rather dead. 

All night the widowed Baroness contrived 
To shed a w^idow's tears ; but on the morrow 

Some news of such unusual sort arrived. 
There came strange alteration in her sorrow ; 

From mouth to mouth it passed, one common humming 

Throughout the house— the King ! the King is coming ! 



148 A LEGEND OF NAVARRE. 

The Baroness, with all her soul and heart, 
A loyal woman (now called ultra royal), 

Soon thrust all funeral concerns apart, 
And only thought about a banquet loyal ; 

In short, by aid of earnest preparation, 

The visit quite dismissed the visitation. 

And, spite of all her grief for the ex-mate, 
There Avas a secret hope she could not smother. 

That some one, early, might replace " the late" — 
It was too soon to think about another ; 

Yet let her minutes of despair be reckoned 

Against her hope, which was but for a second. 

She almost thought that being thus bereft 

Just then, was one of time's propitious touches ; 

A thread in such a nick so nicked, it left 
Free opportunity to be a duchess ; 

Thus all her care was only to look pleasant, 

But as for tears — she dropped them — for the present. 

Her household, as good servants ought to try. 
Looked like their lady — any thing but sad, 

And giggled even that they might not cry, 
To damp fine company ; in truth they had 

No time to mourn, through choking turkeys' throttles, 

Scouring old laces, and reviewing bottles. 

Oh what a hubbub for the house of wo ! 

All, resolute to one irresolution, 
Kept tearing, swearing, plunging to and fro, 

Just like another French mob-revolution. 
There lay the corpse that could not stir a muscle, 
But all the rest seemed Chaos i:i a Ijustle. 



A LEGEND OF NAVARRE. 149 



The Monarch came : oh ! who could ever guess 
The Baroness had been so late a weeper ! 

The kingly grace and more than graciousncss, 
Buried the poor defunct some fathoms deeper — 

Could he have had a glance — alas, poor Being ! 

Seeing would certainly have led to D — ing. 

For casting round about her eyes to find 
Some one to whom her chattels to endorse, 

The comfortable dame at last inclined 

To choose the cheerful Master of the Horse ; 

He was so gay — so tender — the complete 

Nice man — the sweetest of the monarch's suite. 

He saw at once and entered in the lists — 
Glance unto glance made amorous replies ; 

They talked together like two egotists, 
In conversation all made up of eyes : 

No couple ever got so right consort-ish 

Within two hours — a courtship rather shortish. 

At last, some sleepy ^ some by wine opprest, 
The courtly company began "nid noddin;" 

The Kino; first sought his chamber, and the rest 
Instanter followed by the course he trod in. 

I shall not please the scandalous by showing 

The order, or disorder of their going. 

The old Chateau, before that night, had never 
Held half so many underneath its roof; 

It tasked the Baroness's best endeavor. 
And put her best contrivance to the proof, 

To give them chambers up and down the stairs 

In twos and threes, by singles, and by pau's. 



150 A LEGEND OF NAVARRE. 

She had just lodging for the whole — yet barely ; 

And some, that were both broad of back and tall, 
Lay on spare beds that served them very sparely ; 

However, there were beds enough for all ; 
But living bodies occupied so many, 
She could not let the dead one take up any ! 

The act was, certainly, not over decent : 

Some small respect, e'en after death, she owed him, 

Considering his death had been so recent ; 

However, by command, her servants stowed him, 

(I am ashamed to think how he was slubbered,) 

Stuck bolt upright within a corner cupboard ! 

And there he slept as soundly as a post. 
With no more pillow than an oaken shelf; 

Just like a kind accommodating host. 
Taking all inconvenience on himself; 

None else slept in that room, except a stranger, 

A decent man, a sort of Forest Ranger, 

Who, whether he had gone too soon to bed. 

Or dreamt himself into an appetite, 
Howbeit, he took a longing to be fed, 

About the hungry middle of the night ; 
So getting forth, he sought some scrap to eat. 
Hopeful of some stray pastry, or cold meat. 

The casual glances of the midnight moon, 

Brightening some antique ornaments of brass. 

Guided his gropings to that corner soon. 
Just where it stood, the coffin-safe, alas ! 

He tried the door — then shoolc it — and in course 

Of time it opened to a little farce. 



A LEGEND OF NAVARRE. 151 

He put one hand in, and began to grope • 

The place was very deep, and quite as dark as 

The middle night : — when lo ! beyond his hope, 
He felt a something cold — in fact, the carcase ; 

Right overjoyed, he laughed and blest his luck 

At finding, as he thought, this haunch of buck ! 

Then striding back for his couteau de chasse, 
Determined on a little midnight lunching, 

He came again and probed about the mass, 
As if to find the fattest bit for munching ; 

Not meaning wastefully to cut it all up. 

But only to abstract a little collop. 

But just as he had struck one greedy stroke, 
His hand fell down quite powerless and weak ; 

For when he cut the haunch it plainly spoke 
As haunch of ven'son never ought to speak ; 

No wonder that his hand could go no further — 

Whose could ! — to carve cold meat that bellowed 
" murther !" 

Down came the Body with a l^ouncc, and down 
The Ranger sprang, a staircase at a spring. 

And bawled enough to waken up a town ; 

Some thought that they were murdered, some, the King, 

And, like Macduff, did nothing for a season. 

But stand upon the spot and belloAV, " Treason !" 

A hundred nightcaps gathered in a mob. 

Torches drew torches, swords brought swords together, 
It seemed so dark and perilous a job ; 

The Baroness came trembling like a feather 
Just in the rear, as pallid as a corse, 
•Leaning against the Master of the Horse. 



152 A LEGEND OF NAVARRE. 

A dozen of the bravest up the stair, 

Well lighted and well watched, began to clamber ; 
Thej sought the door — they found it — thej were there, 

A dozen heads went poking in the chamber ; 
And lo ! with one hand planted on his hurt, 
There stood the Bodj bleeding thro' his shirt, — 

No passive corse — but like a duellist 

Just smarting from a scratch — in fierce position, 

One hand advanced, and ready to resist ; 
In fact, the Baron doffed the apparition, 

Swearing those oaths the French delight in most, 

And for the second time ''gave up the ghost?" 

A living miracle ! — for why ? — the knife 

That cuts so many off from grave gray hairs, 

Had only carved him kindly into life : 

How soon it changed the posture of affairs ! 

The difference one person more or less 

Will make in families, is past all guess. 

There stood the Baroness — no widow yet : 
Here stood the Baron — " in the body" still : 

There stood the Horses' Master in a pet. 
Choking with disappointment's bitter pill, 

To see the hope of his reversion fail. 

Like that of riding on a donkey's tail. 

The Baron lived — 't was nothing but a trance : 
The lady died — 't was nothing but a death : 

The cupboard-cut served only to enhance 

This postscript to the old Baronial breath : — 

He soon forgave, for the revival's sake, 

A little chop intended for a steak ! 



THE MERMAID OP MARGATE. 



"Alas! what perils do environ 
That man who meddles with a siren!" 

H0DIBBA8. 

On Margate beach, where the sick one roams, 

And the sentimental reads ; 
Where the maiden flirts, and the widow comes- 

Like the ocean — to cast her weeds ; — 

Where urchins wander to pick up shells, 
And the Cit to spj at the ships — 

Like the water gala at Sadler's Wells — 
And the Chandler for watery dips ; — 

There's a maiden sits by the ocean brim, 

As lovely and fair as sin ! 
But woe, deep water and woe to him, 

That she snareth like Peter Fin ! 

Her head is crowned with pretty sea-wares, 
And her locks are golden and loose : 

And seek to her feet, like other folks' heirs, 
To stand, of course, in her shoes ! 

And, all day long, she combeth them well, 

With a sea-shark's prickly jaw ; 
And her mouth is just like a rose-lipped shell, 

The fairest that man e'er saw ! 



154 THE MERMAID OF MARGATE. 

And the Fishmonger, humble as love may be, 
Hath planted his seat by her side ; 

*' Good even, fair maid ! Is thy lover at sea, 
To make thee so watch the tide?" 

She turned about with her pearly brows, 

And clasped him by the hand ; 
*' Come, love, with me ; I've a bonny house 

On the golden Goodwin Sand." 

And then she gave him a siren kiss, 
No honeycomb e'er was sweeter ; 

Poor wretch ! how little he dreamt for this 
That Peter should be salt- Peter : 

And away with her prize to the wave she leapt, 

Not walking, as damsels do. 
With toe and heel, as she ought to have stept, 

But she hopt like a Kangaroo ; 

One plunge, and then the victim was blind, 
Whilst they galloped across the tide ; 

At last, on the bank he waked in his mind. 
And the beauty was by his side. 

One half on the sand, and half in the sea. 
But his hair all began to stiffen ; 

For when he looked where her feet should be, 
She had no more feet than Miss Biffen ! 

But a scaly tail, of a dolphin's growth, 

In the dabbling brine did soak ; 
At last she opened her pearly mouth, 

Like an oyster, and thus she spoke : 



THE MERxMAID OF MARGATE. 155 

" You crimpt my father, who was a skate ; — 

And mj sister you sold — a maid ; 
So here remain for a fish'rj fate, 

For lost you are, and betrayed !" 

And away she- went, with a sea-gull's scream, 

And a splash of her saucy tail ; 
In a moment he lost the silvery gleam 

That shone on her splendid mail ! 

The sun went down with a blood-red flame, 

And the sky grew cloudy and black. 
And the tumbling billows like leap-frog came, 

Each over the other's back ! 

Ah, me ! it had been a beautiful scene, 

With the safe tcrra-firma round ; 
But the green water hillocks all seemed to him^ 

Like those in a churchyard ground ; 

And Christians love in the turf to lie, 

Not in watery graves to be ; 
Nay, the very fishes will sooner die 

On the land than in the sea. 

And whilst he stood, the watery strife 

Encroached on every hand, 
And the ground decreased — his moments of life 

Seemed measured, like Time's, by sand ; 

And still the waters foamed in, like ale. 

In front, and on either flank. 
He knew that Goodwin and Co. must fail. 

There was such a run on the bank. 



156 THE MERMAID OF MARGATE. 

A little more, and a little more, 

The surges came tumbling in ; 
He sang the evening hymn twice o'er, 

And thought of every sin ! 

Each flounder and plaice lay cold at his heart, 

As cold as his marble slab ; 
And he thought he felt in every part, 

The pincers of scalded crab. 

The squealing lobsters that he had boiled. 

And the little potted shrimps, 
All the horny prawns he had ever spoiled, 

Gnawed into his soul, like imps ! 

And the billows were wandering to and fro. 
And the glorious sun was sunk, 

And Day, getting black in the face, as though 
Of the nightshade she had drunk ! 

Had there been but a smuggler's cargo adrift, 

One tub, or keg, to be seen ; 
It might have given his spirits a lift, 

Or an anker where Hojie might lean ! 

But there was not a box or a beam afloat, 
To raft him from that sad place ; 

Not a skiff, nor a yawl, or a mackerel boat, 
Nor a smack upon Neptune's face. 

At last, his lingering hopes to buoy, 

He saw a sail and a mast. 
And called " Ahoy !" — but it was not a hoy, 

And so the vessel went past. 



THE MERMAID OF MARGATE. 157 

And with saucy wing that flapped in his face, 

The wild bird about him flew 
With a shrilly scream, that twitted his case, 

" Why, thou art a sea-gull too !" 

And lo I the tide was over his feet ; 

! his heart began to freeze, 
And slowly to pulse : — in another beat 

The wave was up to his knees ! 

He was deafened amidst the mountain tops, 

And the salt spray blinded his eyes, 
And washed away the other salt drops 

That grief had caused to arise : — 

But just as his body was all afloat, 

And the surges above him broke. 
He was saved from the hungry deep by a boat 

Of Deal — (but builded of oak). 

The skipper gave him a dram, as he lay. 

And chafed his shivering skin ; 
And the Angel returned that was flying away 

With the spirit of Peter Fm ! 



OUE LADY'S CHAPEL. 



A LEGEND OF COBLBNTZ. 



Whoe'er has crossed the Musel Bridge, 
And mounted by the fort of Kaiser Franz, 
Has seen, perchance, 
Just on the summit of St. Peter's ridge, 
A little open chapel to the right. 
Wherein the tapers aye are burning bright ; 
So popular, indeed, this holy shrine. 
At least among the female population, 
By night, or at high noon, you see it shine, 
A very Missal for illmnlnatlon ! 

Yet, when you please, at morn or eve, go by 
All other Chapels, standing in the fields. 
Whose mouldy, wifeless husbandry but yields 
Beans, peas, potatoes, mangel-wurzel, rye, 
And lo ! the Virgin, lonely, dark, and hush. 
Without the glimmer of a farthing rush ! 

But on Saint Peter's Hill 
The lights are burning, burning, burning stilL 
In fact, it is a pretty retail trade 
To furnish forth the candles ready made ; 



OUR lady's chapel. 159 

And close beside the chapel and the way, 
A chandler, at her stall, sits day by day. 
And sells, both long and short, the waxen tapers, 
Smartened with tinsel-foil and tinted papers. 

To give of the mysterious truth an inkling, 
Those who in this bright chapel breathe a prayer 
To " Unser Frow," and burn a taper there, 
Are said to get a husband in a twinkling : 
Just as she-glow^- worms, if it be not scandal, 
Catch partners with their matrimonial candle. 

How kind of blessed saints in heaven — 
Where none in marriage, we are told, are given — 
To interfere below in making matches, 
And help old maidens to connubial catches ! 
The truth is, that instead of looking smugly 

(At least, so whisper wags satirical) 
The votaries are all so old and ugly, 

No man could fall in love but by a miracle. 
However, that such waxen gifts and vows 
Are sometimes for the purpose efficacious 

In helping to a spouse. 
Is vouched for by a story most veracious. 

A certain Woman, though in name a wife, 

Yet doomed to lonely life. 
Her truant husband having been away 
Nine years, two months, a week, and half a day — 
Without remembrances by words or deeds — 
Beo^an to think she had sufficient handle 
To talk of widowhood and burn her weeds, 
Of course with a wax-candle. 



160 OUR lady's chapel. 

Sick, single-handed with the world to grapple, 
Weary of solitude, and spleen, and vapors, 
Away she hurried to Our Lady's Chapel, 

Full-handed with two tapers — 
And prayed, as she had never prayed before, 
To be a boml fide wife once more. 
^' Oh Holy Virgin ! listen to my prayer ! 
And for sweet mercy, and thy sex's sake. 
Accept the vows and offerings I make — 
"Others set up one light, but here 's a pair /" 

Her prayer, it seemed, was heard ; 
For in three little weeks, exactly reckoned, 

As blithe as any bird. 
She stood before the Priest with Hans the Second: — - 
A'fact that made her gratitude so hearty, 
To " Unser Frow," and her propitious shrine, 
She sent two waxen candles superfine. 
Long enough for a Lapland evening party ! 

Rich was the Wedding Feast and rare — 
What sausages were there ! 
Of sweets and sours there was a perfect glut : 
With plenteous liquors to wash down good cheer 
Brantwein, and Rhum, Kirsch-wasser, and Krug Bier, 
And wine so sharp that every one was cut. 
Rare was the feast — but rarer was the quality 
Of mirth, of smoky-joke, and song, and toast — 
When just in all the middle of their jollity — 
With bumpers filled to Hostess and to Host, 
And all the unborn branches of their house. 
Unwelcome and unasked, like Banquo's Ghost, 

In walked the long-lost Spouse ! 



OUR lady's chapel, 161 

What pen could evei; paint 
The hubbub when the Hubs were thus confronted ! 
The bridesmaids fitfully began to faint ; 
The bridesmen stared — some whistled, and some grunted : 
Fierce Hans the First looked like a boar that 's hunted 
Poor Hans the Second like a suckling calf: 
Meanwhile, confounded by the double miracle, 
The two-fold bride sobbed out, with tears hysterical, 
" Oh Holy Virgin, you're too good — by half P'' 

MORAL. 

Ye Coblentz maids, take warning by the rhyme, 
And as our Christian laws forbid polygamy 

For fear of bigamy. 
Only light up one taper at a time. 

VOL. II. H 



THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON. 



In the famous old times, 

(Famed for chivalrous crimes,) 

As the legends of Rhineland deliver, 

Once there flourished a Knight, 

Who Sir Otto was hight, 

On the banks of the rapid green river ! 

On the Drachenfels' crest 

He had built a stone nest, 

From which he pounced down like a vulture, 

And with talons of steel 

Out of every man's meal 

Took a very extortionate multure. 

Yet he lived in good fame, 

With a nobleman's name, 

As " Your High-and- Well-Born" addressed daily- 

Tho' Judge Park in his wig 

Would have deemed him a prig, 

Or a craksman, if tried at th' Old Bailey. 

It is strange — very strange ! 
How opinions will change ! — 
How Antiquity blazons and hallows 



THE KNiaHT AND THE DRAGON. 163 

Both the man and the crime 

That a less lapse of time 

Would commend to the hulks or the gallows t 

Thus enthralled bj Romance, 

In a mystified trance, 

E'en a young, mild, and merciful Woman 

Will recall with delight 

The wild Keep, and its Knight, 

Who was quite as much Tiger as Human ! 

Now it chanced on a day 

In the sweet month of May, 

From his casement Sir Otto was gazing, 

With his sword in the sheath, 

At that prospect beneath, 

Which our Tourists declare so amazing ! 

Yes — he gazed on the Rhine, 

And its banks, so divine ; 

Yet with no admiration or wonder. 

But the gout of a thief, 

As a more modern Chief 

Looked on London, and cried " What a plunder !" 

From that river so fast. 

From that champaign so vast. 

He collected rare tribute and presents ; 

Water-rates from ships' loads, 

Highway-rates on the roads. 

And hard Poor-rates from all the poor Peasants f 

When behold ! round the base 

Of his strong dwelling-place. 

Only gained by most toilsome progression; 



1G4: THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON. 

He perceived a full score 

Of the rustics, or more, 

Winding up in a sort of procession ! 

" Keep them out !" the Knight cried 

To the Warders outside — 

But the Hound at his feet gave a grumble ! 

And in scrambled the knaves, 

Like Feudality's slaves, 

With all forms that are servile and humbi 

^' Now for boorish complaints ! 

Grant me patience, ye Saints'." 

Cried the Knight, turning red as a mullet', 

When the baldest old man 

Thus his story began. 

With a guttural croak in his gullet I 

'' Lord Supreme of our lives, 

Of our daughters, our wives, 

Our she-cousins, our sons, and their spouses, 

Of our sisters and aunts. 

Of the babies God grants. 

Of the handmaids that dwell in our houses I 

*' Mighty master of all 

We possess, great or small, 

Of our cattle, our sows, and their farrows • 

Of our mares and their colts. 

Of our crofts, and our holts. 

Of our ploughs, of our wains, and our harrows I 

'' Noble Lord of the soil, 

Of its corn and its oil. 

Of its wine, only fit for such gentles ! 



THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON. 165 

Of our carp and sauer-kraut, 

Of our carp and our trout, 

Our black bread, and black puddings, and lentils I 

*' Sovran Lord of our cheese, 

And whatever you please — 

Of our bacon, our eggs, and our butter, 

Of our backs and our polls. 

Of our bodies and souls — 

give ear to the woes that we utter ! 

*' We are truly perplexed, 

We are frighted and vexed, 

Till the strings of our heart are all twisted; 

We are ruined and curst, 

By the fiercest and worst 

Of all Robbers that ever existed !" 

*' Now by Heaven and this light !" 

In a rage cried the Knight, 

" For this speech all your bodies shall stiifeni 

What! by Peasants miscalled !" 

Quoth the man that was bald, 

" Not your honor we mean, but a Griffin. 

*' For our herds and our flocks 

He lays wait in the rocks. 

And jumps forth without giving us warning; 

Two poor wethers, right fat, 

And four lambs after that, 

Did he swallow this very May morning!" 

Then the High-and-Well-Born 

Gave a laugh as in scorn, 

'' Is the Griffin indeed such a glutton ? 



166 THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON. • 

Let him eat up the rams, 

And the lambs, and their dams — 

If I hate any meat it is mutton !" 

" Nay, your Worship," said then 

The most bald of old men, 

" For a sheep we would hardly thus cavil, 

If the merciless Beast 

Did not oftentimes feast 

On the Pilgrims, and people that travel." 

" Feast on what?'' cried the Knight, 

While his eye glistened bright 

With the most diabolical flashes — 

" Does the Beast dare to prey 

On the road and highway ? 

With our proper diversion that clashes I" 

" Yea, 'tis so, and far worse," 

Said the Clown, " to our curse ; 

For by way of a snack or a tiffin, 

Every week in the year 

Sure as Sundays appear, 

A young Virgin is thrown to the Griffin I" 

^' Ha ! Saint Peter ! Saint Mark !" 

Roar'd the Knight, frowning dark. 

With an oath that w as awful and bitter : 

" A young maid to his dish ! 

Why, what more could he wish. 

If the Beast were High-Born and a Bitter I 

'' Now by this our good brand, 

And by this our right hand, 

By the badge that is borne on our banners, 



THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON. 167 

If we can but once meet 

With the Monster's retreat, 

We will teach him to poach on our Manors I" 

Quite content with this vow, 

With a scrape and a bow 

The glad Peasants went home to their flagons, 

Where they tippled so deep, 

That each clown in his sleep 

Dreamt of killing a legion of Dragons ! 

Thus engaged, the bold Knight 

Soon prepared for the*fight 

With the wily and scaly mai-auder ; 

But ere battle began, 

Like a good Christian man. 

First he put all his household in order. 

'^ Double bolted and barred 

Let each gate have a guard" — 

(Thus his rugged Lieutenant was bidden) 

" And be sure, without fault, 

No one enters the vault 

Where the Church's gold vessels are hiddeiu 

*' In the dark Oubliette, 

Let yon Merchant forget 

That he e'er had a bark richly laden — 

And that desperate youth. 

Our own rival, forsooth ! 

Just indulge with a Kiss of the Maiden I 

*' Crush the thumbs of the Jew 

With the vice and the screw, 

Till he tells where he buried his treasure^ 



168 THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON. 

And deliver our word 

To yon sullen caged Bird, 

That to-night she must sing for our pleasure!" 

Thereupon, cap-a-pee, 

As a Champion should be, 

With the bald-headed Peasant to guide him, 

On his War-horse he bounds, 

And then, whistling his hounds, 

Prances off to what fate may betide him ! 

Nor too long do they seek 

Ere a horrible reek, * 

Like the fumes from some villanous tavern, 

Sets the dogs on the snuff. 

For they scent well enough 

The foul Monster coiled up in his cavern ! 

Then alighting with speed 

From his terrified steed. 

Which he ties to a tree for the present, 

With his sword ready drawn, "* 

Strides the Ritter High-born, 

And along with him drags the scared peasant ! 

*' Sir Knight, good Sir Knight ! 

I am near enough quite — 

I have shown you the Beast and his grotto;" 

But before he can reach 

Any farther in speech. 

He is stricken stone-dead by Sir Otto ! 

Who, withdrawing himself 

To a high rocky shelf. 

Sees the Monster his tail disentangle 



THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON. 1G9 

From each tortuous coil, 

With a sudden turmoil, 

And rush forth the dead Peasant to mangle. 

With his terrible claws, 

And his horrible jaws, 

He soon moulds the warm corse to a jellj j 

Which he quickly sucks in 

To his own wicked skin 

And then sinks at full stretch on his belly. 

Then the Knight softly goes, 

On the tips of his toes. 

To the greedy and slumbering Savage, 

And with one hearty stroke 

Of his sword, and a poke, 

Kills the Beast that had made such a ravage. 

So, extended at length. 

Without motion or strength, 

That gorged Serpent they call the Constrictor, 

After dinner, while deep 

In. lethargical sleep, 

Falls a prey to his Hottentot victor. 

" 'Twas too easy by half!" 

Said the Knight, with a laugh ; 

'' But as nobody witnessed the slaughter, 

I will swear, knock and knock. 

By Saint Winifred's clock, 

We were at it three hours and a quarter 1" 

Then he chopt off the head 

Of the Monster so dread, 

Which he tied to his horse as a trophy ; 



170 THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON. 

And, with Hounds, by the same 

Ragged path that he came, 

Home he jogged proud as Sultan or Sophy ! 

Blessed Saints ! what a rout 

When the news flew about. 

And the carcase was fetched in a wagon ; 

What an outcry rose wild 

From man, woman, and child— 

^'Live Sir Otto, who vanquished the Dragon!" 

All that night the thick walls 

Of the Knight's feudal halls 

Rang with shouts for the wine-cup and flagon ; 

Whilst the Vassals stood by. 

And repeated the cry — 

"Live Sir Otto, who vanquished the Dragon!" 

The next night, and the next. 

Still the fight was the text, 

'T was a theme for the Minstrels to brag on I 

And the Vassals' hoarse throats 

Still re-echoed the notes — 

"Live Sir Otto who vanquished the Dragon!" 

There was never such work 

Since the days of King Stork, 

When he lived with the Frogs at free quarters I 

Not to name the invites 

That were sent down of nights, 

To the villagers' wives and their daughters! 

It was feast upon feast. 

For good cheer never ceased. 

And a foray replenished the flagon ; 



THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON. 171 

And the Vassals stood by, 

But more wesik was the cry — 

"Live Sir Otto, who vanquished the dragon I" 

Down again sank the sun, 

Nor were revels yet done — 

But as if every mouth had a gag on, 

Tho' the Vassals stood round, 

Deuce a word or a sound 

Of " Sir Otto who vanquished the Dragon!" 

There was feasting aloft, 

But, thro' pillage so oft 

Down below there was wailing and hunger; 

And affection ran cold, 

And the food of the old, 

It was wolfishly snatched by the younger ! 

Mad with troubles so vast, 

Where 's the wonder at last 

If the Peasants quite altered their motto ? — 

And with one loud accord 

Cried out " Would to the Lord 

That the Dragon had vanquished Sir Otto!" 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 



OP 



WIT AND HUMOR. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



STANZAS ON COMING OF AGE. 

" Twiddle'em, Twaddle'em, Twenty-one." 

Nurse. G woe I O woeful, woeful day ! 

Most lamentable day I most woeful day ! 
That ever, ever, I did yet behold I 
O day! O day ! O day ! O hateful day! 
Never was seen so black a day as this ! 
O woeful day I O woeful day I 

Musician. Faith, we niay put up our pipes an;l be gone. 
Nurse. Honest good fellows, ah ! put up, put up ! 

For well you know this is a pitiful case. 

Romeo and Juliet- 

To-DAY it is my natal day, 

Three 'prenticeships have past away, 

A part in work, a part in play, 

Since I was bound to life ! 
This first of May I come of age, 
A man, I enter on the stage 
Where human passions fret and rage, 

To mingle in the strife. 

It ought to be a happy date. 
My friends, they all congratulate 
That I am come to " Man's Estate," 
To some, a grand event ; 



17G STANZAS ON COMINQ OF AGE. 

But ah ! to me descent allots 
No acres, no maternal spots 
In Beds, Bucks, Herts, Wilts, Essex, Notts, 
Hants, Oxon, Berks, or Kent. 

From John o' Groat's to Land's End search, 
I have not one rod, pole, or perch, 
To pay my rent, or tithe to church. 

That I can call my own. 
Not common-right for goose or ass ; 
Then what is Man's Estate ? Alas ! 
Six feet by two of mould and grass 

When I am dust and bone. 

Reserve tte feast ! The board forsake ! 
Ne'er tap the wine — don't cut the cake, 
No toasts or foolish speeches make, 

At which my reason spurns. 
Before this happy term you praise, 
And prate about returns and days. 
Just o'er my vacant rent-roll gaze, 

And sum up my returns. 

I know w^here great estates descend 
That here is Boyhood's legal end, 
And easily can comprehend 

How " Manors make the Man." 
But as for me, I was not born 
To quit-rent of a peppercorn, 
And gain no ground this blessed morn 

From Beersheba to Dan. 

No barrels broach — no bonfires make ! 
To roast a bullock for my sake, 



STANZAS ON COMING OF AGE. 177 

Who in the country have no stake, 

Would be too like a quiz ; 
No banners hoist — let off no gun — 
Pitch no marquee — devise no fun — 
But think when man is Twenty-One 

What new delights are his ! 

What is the moral legal fact — 
Of age to-day, I 'm free to act 
For self — free, namely, to contract 

Engagements, bonds, and debts ; 
I 'mx free to give my I U, 
Sign, draw^, accept, as majors do ; 
And free to lose my freedom too 

For w^ant of due assets. ' 

I am of age to ask Miss Ball, 

Or that great heiress. Miss Duval, 

To go to church, hump, squint, and all, 

And be my own for life. 
But put such reasons on their shelves, 
To tell the truth between ourselves, 
I 'm one of those contented elves 

Who do not want a wife. 

What else belongs to Manhood still ? 
I 'm old enough to make my will 
With valid clause and codicil 

Before in turf I lie. 
But I have nothing to bequeath 
In earth, or waters underneath, 
And in all candor let me breathe, 

I do not want to die. 

VOL. IT. 12 



178 STANZAS ON COMING OF AGE, 

Away ! if this be Manhood's forte, 
Put by the sherry and the port — 
]So ring of bells — no rustic sport — 

No dance — no merry pipes ! 
No flowery garlands — no bouquet — 
No Birthday Ode to sing or say — 
To me it seems this is a day 

For bread and cheese and swjpes. 

To justify the festive cup 

What horrors here are conjured up ! 

What things of bitter bite and sup, 

Poor wretched Twenty-One's ! 
No landed lumps, but frumps and humps, 
(Discretion's Days are far from trumps,) 
Domestic discord, dowdies, dumps, 

Death, dockets, debts, and duns ! 

If you must drink, oh drink " the King," 
■Reform — the Church — the Press — the Hing, 
Drink Aldgate Pump — or anything, 

Before a toast like this ! 
Nay, tell me, coming thus of age. 
And turning o'er this sorry page. 
Was young Nineteen so far from sage ? 

Or young Eighteen from bliss ? 

Till this dull, cold, wet, happy morn — - 
No sign of May about the thorn- — 
Were Love and Bacchus both unborn ? 

Had Beauty not a shape ? 
Make answer, sweet Kate Finnerty ! 
Make answer, lads of Trinity ? 
Who sipped with me Divinity, 

And quaffed the ruby grape ! 



STANZAS ON COMING OF AGE. 179 

No flummerj then from flovverj lips, 
No three times three and hip-hip-hips, 
Because I 'm ripe and full of pips — 

I like a little green. 
To put me on mj solemn oath, 
If sweep-like I could stop m j growth 
I would remain, and nothins; loth, 

A boy — about nineteen. 

My friends, excuse me these rebukes ! 
Were I a monarch's son, or duke's, 
Go to the Vatican of Meux 

And broach his biggest barrels — 
Impale whole elephants on spits — 
Ring Tom of Lincoln till he splits. 
And dance into St. Vitus' s fits, 

And break your winds with carols ! 

But ah ! too well you know my lot, 
Ancestral acres greet me not. 
My freehold 's in a garden-pot, 

And barely worth a pin. 
Away then with all festive stuff! 
Let Robins advertise and puff 
My " Man's Estate," I "m sure enough 

I shall not buy it in. 



180 THE LOST HEIR. 



THE LOST HEIR. 



" Oh where, and oh where 
Is my bonnie laddie gone ?" — Old Sono. 



One day, as I was going by 

That part of Holborn christened High, 

I heard a loud and sudden cry 

That chill'd my very blood ; 
And lo ! from out a dirty alley, 
Where pigs and Irish wont to rally, 
I saw a crazy woman sally, 

Bedaubed with grease and mud. 
She turned her East, she turned her West, 
Staring like Pythoness possest, 
With streaming hair and heaving breast, 

As one stark mad with grief 
This way and that she wildly ran, 
Jostling with woman and with man — ^ 
Her right hand held a frying-pan, 

The left a lumip of beef 
At last her frenzy seemed to reach 
A point just capable of speech, 
And with a tone, almost a screech, 

As wild as ocean birds, 
Or female Ranter moved to preach, 

She gave her " sorrow words." 



'J 



" Lord! dear, my heart will break, I shall go stick 

stark staring wild ! 
Has ever a one seen any thing about the streets like a 

crying lost-looking child? 



THE LOST HEIR. IS J 

Lawk help me, I don't know where to look, or to run if I 

only knew which way — 
A Child as is lost about London streets, and especially 

Seven Dials, is a needle in a bottle of hay. 
I am all in a quiver — get out of my sight, do, you wretcli, 

you little Kitty M'Nab ! 
You promised to have half an eye to him, you know you 

did, you dirty deceitful young drab. 
The last time as ever I see him, poor thing, was with my 

own blessed Motherly eyes. 
Sitting as good as gold in the gutter, a playing at making 

little dirt pies. 
I wonder he left the court, where he was better oif than all 

the other young boys, 
With two bricks, an old shoe, nine oyster-shells, and a dead 

kitten by way of toys. 
When his Father comes home, and he always comes home 

as sure as ever the clock strikes one, 
He '11 be rampant, he will, at his child being lost ; and the 

beef and the inguns not done ! 
La bless you, good folks, mind your own concarns, and 

don't be making a mob in the street; 
Serjeant M Tar lane ! you have not come across my poor 

little boy, have you, in your beat? 
Do, good people, move on ! don't stand staring at me like a 

parcel of stupid stuck pigs : 
Saints forbid ! but he 's p'r'aps been inviggled away up a 

court for the sake of his clothes by the priggs ; 
He'd a very good jacket, for certain, for I bought it myself 

for a shilling one day in Rag Fair ; 
And his trowsers considering* not very much patched, and 

red plush, they was once his Father's best pair. 



182 THE LOST HEIR, 

His shirt, it 's verj luckj I 'd got wasliing in the tub, or 

that might have gone with the rest ; 
But he "(1 got on a verj good pinafore with only two slits 

and a burn on the breast. 
He 'd a goodish sort of hat, if the crown was sew'd in, and 

not quite so much jagged at the brim. 
With one shoe on, and the other shoe is a boot, and not a 

fit, and you '11 know by tliat if it 's him. 
Except being so well dressed, my mind would misgive, some 

old beggar woman in Avant of an orphan 
Had borrowed the child to go a begging with ; but I'd rather 

see him laid out in his coffin ! 
Do, good people, move on ; such a rabble of boys ! I '11 

break every bone of 'em I come near ; 
Go home — you re spilling the porter — go home — Tommy 

Jones, go along with your beer. 
This day is the sorrowfullest day of my life, ever since my 

name was Betty Morgan, 
Them vile Savoyards ! they lost him once before all along 

of following a Monkey and an Organ : 
my Billy — my head will turn right round — if he 's got 

kiddynapp'd with them Italians 
They '11 make him a plaster parish image boy, they will, 

the outlandish tatterdemalions. 
Billy — where are you, Billy? — I'm as hoarse as a crow, 

with screaming for ye, you young sorrow ! 
And shan't have half a voice, no more I shan't, for crying 

fresh herrings to-morrow. 
Billy, you 're bursting my heart in two, and my life 

won't be of no more vally, 
If I 'm to see other folks darlins, and none of mine, play- 
ing like angels in our alley. 



THE LOST HEIR. 183 

And wliiit shall I do but cry out my eyes, when I looks at 

the old ^hree-legged chair 
As Billy used to make coach and horses of, and there a' n't 

no Billy there ! 
I would run all the wide world over to find him, if I only 

knowed where to run ; 
Little Murphy, now I remember, was once lost for a month 

through stealing a penny -bun — 
The Lord forbid of any child of mine ! I think it would 

kill me rally 
To find my Bill holdin' up his lit Je innocent hand at the 

Old Bailey. 
For though I say it as oughtn't, yet I will say, you may 

search for miles and mileses 
And not find one better brought up, and more pretty be- 
haved, from one end to t' other of St, Giles's. 
And if I called him a beauty, it's no lie, but only as a 

Mother ought to speak ; 
You never set eyes on a more handsomer face, only it has n't 

been washed for a week ; 
As for hair, tho' its red, its the most nicest hair when I 've 

time to just show it the comb ; 
I '11 owe 'em five pounds, and a blessing besides, as will only 

bring him safe and sound home. 
He 's blue eyes, and not to be called a squint, though a little 

cast he 's certainly got ; 
And his nose is still a good un, tho' the bridge is broke, by 

his falling on a pewter pint pot ; 
He 's got the most elegant wide mouth in the world, and 

very large teeth for his age ; 
And quite as fit as Mrs. Murdockson's child to play Cupid 

on the Drury Lane Stage. 
And then he has got such dear winning ways — but I 

never never shall see him no more ! 



184 THE LOST HEIK 

dear ! to think of losing him just after nussing him back 

from death's door ! 
Only the very last month when the windfalls, hang 'em, 

was at twenty a penny ! 
And the threepence he 'd got by grottoing was spent in 

plums, and sixty for a child is too many. 
And the Cholera man came and whitewashed us all and, drat 

him, made a seize of our ho^;. — 
It 's no use to send the Cryer to cry him about, he 's such a 

blunderin' drunken old dog ; 
The last time he w^as fetched to find a lost child, he was 

guzzling with his bell at the Crown, 
And went and cried a boy instead of a girl, for a distracted 

Mother and Father about Town. 
Billy — where are you, Billy, I say ? come Billy, come home, 

to your best of Mothers ! 

1 'm scared when I think of them Cabroleys, they drive so, 

they 'd run over their own Sisters and Brothers. 
Or may be he 's stole by some chimbly sweeping wretch, to 

stick fast in narrow flues and what not. 
And be poked up behind with a picked pointed pole, when 

the soot has ketched, and tlie chimbly* s red hot. 
Oh I 'd give the whole wide world, if the world was "mine, 

to clap my two longin' eyes on his fice. 
For he 's my darlin of darlins, and if he don't soon come 

back, you '11 see me drop stone dead on the place. 
I only wish I 'd got him safe in these two Motherly arms, 

and would n't I hug him and kiss him ! 
Lauk ! I never knew what a precious he was — but a child 

don't not feel like a child till you miss him. 
Why there he is ! Punch and Judy hunting, the young 

wretch, it's that Billy as sartin as sin ! 
But let me get him home, with a good grip of his hair, and 

I 'm blest if he shall have a whole bone in his skin ! 



A SINGULAR EXHIBITION AT SOMERSET HOUSE. 185 



A SINGULAR EXHIBITION AT SOMERSET HOUSE. 

"Our Crummie is a dainty cow."— Scotch Song. 

On that first Saturday in May, 

When Lords and Ladies, great and grand, 

Repair to see what each R,, A. 

Has done since last they sought the Strand, 

In red, brown, yellow, green, or blue. 

In short, what 's called the private view, 

Amongst the guests — the deuce knows how 

She got in there without a row — 

There came a large and vulgar dame 

With arms deep red, and face the same, 

Showing in temper not a Saint ; 

No one could guess for why she came, 

Unless perchance to " scour the Paint." 

From wall to wall she forced her way. 
Elbowed Lord Durham — poked Lord Grey — 
Stamped Staflord's toes to make him move, 
And Devonshire's Duke received a shove ; 
The great Lord Chancellor felt her nudge, 
She made the Vice, his Honor, budge, 
And gave a pinch to Park the Judge. 
As for the ladies, in this stir. 
The highest rank gave way to her. 

From number one and number two. 

She searched the pictures through and through, 

On benches stood, to inspect the high ones, 

And squatted down to scan the shy ones. 

And as she went from part to part, 

A deeper red each cheek became, 



t86 A SINGULAR EXHIBITION 

Her very eyes lit up in flame, 

That made each looker-on exclaim, 

" Really an ardent love of art !" 

Alas, amidst her inquisition, 

Fate brought her to a sad condition ; 

She might have run against Lord Milton, 

And still have stared at deeds in oil, 

But ah ! her picture-joy to spoil, 

She came full butt on Mr. Hilton. 

The Keeper mute, with staring eyes. 
Like a lay-figure for surprise. 
At last thus stammered out "How now? 
Woman — where, woman, is your ticket, 
That ought to let you through our wicket?" 
"^Says woman, " Where is David's Cow?" 

Said Mr. H . with expedition, 

There 's no Cow in the Exhibition. 

'' No Cow !" — but here her tongue in verity, 

Set off with steam and rail celerity — 

^' Nu Cow ! there an't no Cow, then the more 's the shame 

and pity 
Hang you and the R. A.'s, and all the Hanging Committee ! 
No cow — but hold your tongue, for you needn't talk to me — 
You can't talk up the Cow, you can't, to where it ought 

to be — 
I have n't seen a picture high or low, or any how. 
Or in any of the rooms to be compared with David's Cow? 
You may talk of your Landseers, and of your Coopers, and 

your Wards, 
Why hanging is too good for them, and yet here they are 

on cords •! 



AT SOMERSET HOUSE. 187 

They 're only fit for window frames, and shutters, and street 

doors, 
David will paint 'em any day at Red Lions or Blue Boars — 
Why Morland was a fool to him, at a little pig or sow — 
It's really hard it an't hung up — I could cry about the 

Cow ! 
But I know well what it is, and why — they're jealous of 

David's fame. 
But to vent it on the Cow, poor thing, is a cruelty and a 

shame. 
Do you thiiik it might hang by and by, if you cannot hang 

it noAV? 
David has made a party up to come and see his Cow. 
If it only hung three days a week, for an example to the 

learners, 
Why can't it hang up, turn about, with that picture of ]Mr. 

Turner's ? 
Or do you think from Mr., Etty, you need apprehend a row ? 
If now and then you cut him down to hang up David's Cow ? 
I can't think where their tastes have been, to not have such 

a creature. 
Although I say, that should not say, it was prettier than 

Nature ; 
It must be hung — and shall be hung, for Mr. H , I 

vow, 
I dare n't take home the catalogue, unless it 's got the Cow I 
As we only want it to be seen, I should not so much care. 
If it was only round the stone man's neck, a-coming up the 

stair. 
Or down there in the marble room where all the figures 

stand, 
Where one of them three Graces might just hokl it m her 

hand — 



188 I 'M going to BOMBAY. 

Or maybe Bailej"s Charity the favor would allow, 
It would really be a charity to hang up David's cow. 
We have n't no Avhere else to go if you don't hang it here, 
The Water- Color place allows no oilman to appear — 
And the British Gallery sticks to Dutch, Teniers, and Ger- 

rard Douw, 
And the Suffolk Gallery will not do — it 's not a Suffolk Cow : 
I wish you 'd see him painting her, he hardly took his meals 
Till she was painted on the board correct from head to heels; 
His heart and soul w^as in his Cow, and almost made him 

shabby, 
He hardly whipped the boys at all, or helped to nurse the 

babby. 
And when he had her all complete and painted over red, 
He got so grand, I really thought him going off his head. 
Now hang it, jNIr. Hilton, do just hang it any how, 
Poor David, he will hang himself, unless you hang his 

Cow — 
And if it 's unconvenient and drawn too big by half — 
David shan't send next year except a very little calf. 



I'M GOING TO BOMBAY. 



"Nothing venture, nothing have." — Old Proverb. 
" Every Indiaman has at least two mates." — 

Falconer's Marinb Gthde. 



My hair is brown, my eyes are blue, 
And reckoned rather bright ; 
I 'm shapely, if they tell me true, 
And just the proper height; 



I 
I 



I 'M going to BOMBAY. 189 

My skin has been admired in verse, 
And called as fair as day — 
If I am fair, so much the worse, 
I 'm going to Bombay ! 

At school I passed with some eclat ; 
I learned my French in France ; 
De Wint gave lessons how to draw, 
And D'Egville how to dance — 
Crevelli taught me how to sing. 
And Cramer how to play — 
It realLj is the strangest thing- r 
I 'm going to Bombay ! 

I 've been to Bath and Cheltenham Wells, 

But not their springs to sip — 

To Ramsgate — not to pick up shells — 

To Brighton — not to dip, 

I 've touredj:he Lakes, and scoured the coast 

From Scarboro' to Torquay — 

But tho' of time I 've made the most, 

I 'm going to Bombay ! 

By Pa and Ma I 'm daily told 

To marry now 's my time, 

For though I 'm very far from old, 

I 'm rather in my prime. 

They say ^^hile we have any sun 

We ought to make our hay — 

And India has so hot an one, 

I 'm going to Bombay ! 

My cousin writes from Hyderapot, 
My only chance to snatch. 



190 I'm going to Bombay. 

And says the climate is so hot, 

It 's sure to light a match — 

She 's married to a son of Mars 

With very handsome pay, 

And swears I ought to thank my stars 

I 'm going to Bombay ! 

She says that I shall much delight 

To taste their Indian treats, 

But what she likes may turn me quite , 

Their strange outlandish meats — . 

If I can eat rupees, who knows ? 

Or dine, the Indian way. 

On doolies and on bungalows — 

I 'm going to Bombay ! 

She says that I shall much enjoy — 

I don't know what she means — 

To take the air and buy some toy 

In my own palankeens — 

I like to drive my pony-chair, 

Or ride our dapple gray — 

But elephants are horses there — 

I 'm going to Bombay I 

Farewell, farewell, my parents dear, 

My friends, farewell to them ! 

And oh, what costs a sadder tear 

Good-bye, to Mr. M. !— 

If I should find an Indian vault, 

Or fall a tiger's prey. 

Or steep in salt, it 's all his fault, 

I 'm going to Bombay ! 



SONNET TO A DECAYED SEAMAN. 191 

That fine new teak-built ship, the Fox, 

A. 1. — Commander Bird, 

Now lying in the London Docks, 

Will sail on May the Third; 

Apply for passage or for freight, 

To Nichol, Scott, and Gray — 

Pa has applied and sealed my fate — 

I 'm going to Bombay ! 

My heart is full — my trunks as well ; 

My mind and caps made up. 

My corsets, shaped by Mrs. Bell, 

Are promised ere I sup ; 

With boots and shoes, Rivarta's best, 

And Dresses by Duce, 

And a special license in my chest — 

I 'm going to Bombay ! 



SONNET TO A DECAYED SEAMAN. 

Hail ! seventy-four cut down ! Hail, Top and Lop ! 

Unless I 'm much mistaken in my notion, 
Thou wast a stirring Tar, before that hop 

Became so fatal to thy locomotion ; — 
Now, thrown on shore, like a mere weed of ocean, 

Thou readest still to men a lesson good. 
To King and Country showing thy devotion 

By kneeling thus upon a stump of wood ! 
Still is thy spirit strong as alcohol ; 

Spite of that limb, begot of acorn-egg — 
Methinks — thou Naval History in one Vol. — • 

A virtue shines, e'en in that timber leg, 
For unlike others that desert their Poll, 

Thou walkest ever with thy " Constant Peg!" 



192 A BLOW-UP. 

A BLOW-UP. 

" Here we go up, up, up." — The Lay of the Fibst Minstkel. 

Near Battle, Mr. Peter Baker 
Was Powder-maker, 
"Not Alderman Flower's flour — the white that puffs 
And primes and loads heads bald, or grej, or chowder, 
Figgins and Iliggins, Fippins, Filbj — Crowder, 
Not vile apothecary's pounded stuffs. 
But something blacker, bloodier and louder — 
Gun-powder ! 

This stuff, as people know, is semper 
Eadem ; very hasty in its temper — 
Like Honor that resents the gentlest taps, 
Mere semblances of blows, however slight ; 
So powder fires, although you only p'rhaps 

Strike light. 
To make it, therefore, is a ticklish business, 
And sometimes gives both head and heart a dizzineaa^ 
For as all human flash and fancy minders. 
Frequenting fights and Powder-works well know, 
There seldom is a mill without a blow 
Sometimes upon the grinders. 
But then — the melancholy phrase to soften, 
Mr. B.'s mill transpired so very often ! 
And advertised — then all Price Currents louder, 
" Fragments look up — there is a rise in Powder," 
So frequently, it caused the neighbors' wonder — 
And certain people had the inhumanity 
To lay it all to Mr. Baker's vanity, 
That he might have to say — " That was my thunder!'' 



A BLOW-UP. 193 

One day — so goes the tale, 

Whether, with iron hoof 

Not sparkle-proof, 
Some ninny-hammer struck upon a nail — 
Whether some glow-worm of the Guy Faux stamp, 
Crept in the building, with Unsafety Lamp — 
One day this mill that had by water ground, 
Became a sort of windmill and blew round. 
With bounce that went in sound as far as Dover, it 
Sent half the workmen sprawling to the sky ; 
Besides some visitors who gained thereby 
What they had asked — permission "to go over it!" 
Of course it was a very hard and high blow, 
And somewhat differed from what 's called a flyblow. 
At Cowes' Regatta, as I once observed, 
A pistol-shot made tv/enty vessels start ; 
If such a sound could terrify oak's heart, 
Think how this crash the human nerve unnerved. 
In fact, it was a very awful thing — 
As people know that have been used to battle, 
In springing either mine or mill, you spring 

A precious rattle ! 
The dunniest heard it — poor old Mr. F. 
Doubted for once if he was ever deaf : 
Through Tunbridge town it caused most strange alarms, 

Mr. and Mrs. Fogg, 

Who lived like cat and dog, 
Were shocked for once into each other's arms. 
Miss M. the milliner, her fright so strong, 
Made a great gobble-stitch six inches long ; 
The veriest quakers quaked against their wish : 
The " Best of Sons'' was taken unaware^, 
And kicked the " Best of I*arents' down the stairs : 

VOL. II. 13 



394 A BLOW-UP. 

The steadiest servant dropped tlie China dish ; 
A thousand started, though there was but one 
Fated to win, and that was Mister Dunn, 
Who struck convulsively, and hooked a fish ! 

Miss Wiggins, with some grass upon her fork, 
Tossed it just like a hay-maker at work ; 
Her sister not in any better case, 

For taking wine. 

With nervous Mr. Pyne, 
He jerked his glass of Sherry in her face. 

Poor Mistress Davy, 
Bobbed off her bran-new turban in the gravy ; 
While Mr. Davy at the lower end. 
Preparing for a Goose a carver's labor, 
Darted his two-pronged weapon in liis neighbor, 
As if for once he meant to help a friend. 

The nurse-maid telling little " Jack-a-Norey," 
" Bo-]5eep" and " Blue-cap" at the house's top, 
Screamed, and let Master Jeremiah drop 

From a fourth story ! 
Nor yet did matters any better go 
With Cook and Housemaid in the realms below ; 
As for the Laundress, timid Martha Gunning, 
Expressing faintness and her fear by fits 
And starts — she came at last but to her wits 
By falling in the ale that John left running. 

Grave Mr. Miles, the meekest of mankind. 
Struck all at once, deaf, stupid, dumb, and blind, 
Sat in his chaise some moments like a corse, 

Then coming to his mind, 

.Was shocked to find 



A BLOW-UP. 1,% 

Only a pair oi shafts without a horse. 

Out scrambled all the Misses from Miss Joy's ! 

From Prospect House, for urchins small and big, 
Hearing the awful noise, 
Out rushed a flood of boys. 

Floating a man in black, without a wig ; — 

Some carried out one treasure, some another — 
Some caught their tops and taws up in a hurry, 
Same saved Chambaud, some rescued Lindley Murray^'' 

But little Tiddy carried his big brother ! 

Sick of such terrors. 
The Tunbridge folks resolved that truth should dwell 
No longer secret in a Tunbridge Well, 
But to v^^arn Baker of his dan onerous errors ; 
Accordingly, to bring the point to pass, 
They called a meeting of the broken glass. 
The shattered chimney-pots, and scattered tiles, 

The damage of each part, 

And packed it in a cart 
Drawn by the horse that ran from Mr. Miles ; 
While Doctor Babblethorpe, the worthy Rector, 
And Mr. Gammage, cutler to George Rex, 
And some few more, whose names would only vex, 
Went as a deputation to tlie Ex- 
Powder-proprietor and Mill-director. 

Now Mr. Baker's dwelling-house had pleased 

Along with mill-materials to roam. 

And for a time the deputies were teased 

To find the noisy gentleman at home ; 

At List they found him with undamaged skin, 

Safe at the Tanbridire Arms — not out — but Inn. 



196 A BLOW-UP. 

The worthy Rector, with uncommon zeal, 
Soon put his spoke in for the common weal — 
A grave old gentlemanly kind of Urban — 
The piteous tale of Jeremiah moulded, 

And then unfolded, 
By way of climax, Mrs. Davy's turban ; 
He told how auctioneering Mr. Pidding 

Knocked down a lot without a bidding — ^ 
How Mr. Miles, in a fright, had given his mare 

The whip she would n't bear — 
At Prospect House, how Doctor Gates, not Titus, 

Danced like St. Vitus — 
And Mr. Beak, thro' Powder's misbehaving, 

Cut off his nose whilst shaving ; — 
When suddenly, with words that seemed like swearing, 
Beyond a Licenser's belief or bearing — 
Broke in the stuttering, sputtering Mr. Gammage — 
Who is to pay us. Sir — he argued thus, 
*'For loss of cus-cus-cus-cus-cus-cus-cus — 
Cus-custom, and the dam-dam-dam-dam-damage ?" 

Now many a person had been foirly puzzled 
By such assailants, and completely muzzled ; 
Baker, however, was not dashed with ease — 
But proved he practised after their own system. 
And with small ceremony soon dismissed 'em. 
Putting these words into their ears like fleas ; 
" If I do have a blow, well, where 's the oddity? 
I merely do as other tradesmen do, 

You, Sir — and you — and you ! 
I 'm only puffing off my own commodity !" 



A TRUE STORY. 197 



A TRUE STORY. 



Whoe'er has seen upon the human face 
The yellow jaundice and the jaundice black, 
May form a notion of old Colonel Case 
With nigger Pompej Avaiting at his back. 

Case — as the case is, many times with folks 
From hot Bengal, Calcutta, or Bombay, 
Had tint his tint, as Scottish tongues would say, 
And showed two cheeks as yellow as eggs' yolks. 
Pompey, the chip of some old ebon block, 
In hue was like his master's stiff cravat. 
And might indeed have claimed akin to that^ 
Coming, as he did, of an old black stock. 

)^ Case wore the liver's livery that such 
Must wear, their past excesses to denote, 
Like Greenwich pensioners that take too much, 
And then do penance in a yellow coat. 
Pompey" s, a deep and permanent jet dye, 
A stain of nature's stainino- — one of those 

o 

We csl\fast colors — merely, I suppose, 
Because such colors never go or fly. 

Pray mark this difference of dark and sallow, 
Pompey' s black husk, and the old Colonel's yellow. 

The Colonel, once a pennyless beginner, 
From a long Indian rubber rose a winner, 
With plenty of pagodas in his pocket. 
And homeward turning his Hibernian thought, 
Deemed Wicklow was the very place that ought 
To harbor one whose tvick was in the socket. 



198 A TRUE STORY. 

Unhappily for Case's scheme of quiet, 
Wicklow just then was in a pretty riot, 
A fact recorded in each day's diurnals, 
Things Case was not accustomed to peruse, 

Careless of news ; 
But Pompey always read these bloody journals, 
Full of Killmany and of Killmore work, 
The freaks of some O'Shaunessy's shillaly, 
Of mornings frays by some O'Brien Burke, 
Or horrid nightly outrage by some Daly ; 
How scums deserving of the Devil's ladle, 
Would fall upon the harmless scull and knock it, 
And if he found an infant in the cradle, 
Stern Bock would hardly hesitate to rock it ; — 
In fact, he read of burner and of killer, 
And Irish ravage, day after day, 
Till, haunting in his dreams, he used to say 
That "Pompey could not sleep on Pompey^ s Pillar. ^\ 



Judge then the horror of the nigger's face 

To find — with such impressions of that dire land — 

That Case — his master — was a packing case 

For Ireland ! 
He saw, in fearful reveries arise, 
Phantasmagorias of those dreadful men 
Whose fame associate with Irish plots is, 
Fitzge raids — Tones — 0' Connors — Hares — and then 
'' Those Emmets ^^^ not so " little in his eyes" 

As Doctor Watts' s ! 
He felt himself piked, roasted — carved and hacked. 
His big black burly body seemed in fact 
A pincushion for Terror's pins and needles — 
Oh, how he wished himself beneath the sun 



J 



A TRUE STORY. 20"' 

Of Afric — or in far Barbadoes — one 

Of Bishop Coleridge's new black beadles. 

Full of his fright, 
With broken peace and broken English choking, 
As black as any raven, and as croaking, 
Pompey rushed in upon his master's sight, 
Plumped on his knees, and clasped his sable digits, 
Thus stirring Curiosity's sharp fidgets — 
^' Massa ! — Massa! — Colonel! — Massa Case : — 
Not go to Ireland ! — Ireland dam bad place ; 
Dem take our bloods — dem Irish — every drop — 
Oh why for Massa go so far a distance 

To have him life ?" Here Pompey made a stop 

Putting an awful period to existence. 

*' Not go to Ireland — not to Ireland, fellow, 

And murdered — why should I be murdered. Sirrah?" 

Cried Case, with anger's tinge upon his yellow — ; 

Pompey, for answer, pointing in a mirror 

The Colonel's saffron, and his own japan, — 

'' Well, what has that to do — quick — speak outright, 

boy?" 
" Massa" — (so the explanation ran) 
" Massa be killed — 'cause Massa Orange Man^ 
And Pompey killed — 'cause Pompey not a While 

Boyr 



200 THERE 'S NO ROMANCE IN THAT. 



THERE'S NO ROMANCE IN THAT! 

" So while I fondly imagined we were deceiving my relations, and flattered myself 
that I should outwit and incense them all ; behold, my hopes are to be crushed at once, 
by my aunt's consent and approbation, and I am myself the only dupe. But here, Sir, 
♦—here is the picture 1" — Lydia Langxtish. 

DAYS of old, days of Knights, 
Of tourneys and of tilts, 

When love was balked and valor stalked 

On high heroic stilts — 
Where are ye gone ? — adventures cease, 

The world gets tame and flat — 
We 've nothing now but New Police — * 

There 's no Romance in that ! 

1 wish I ne'er had learned to read, 

Or Radcliffe how to write ; 
That Scott had been a boor on Tweed, 

And Lewis cloistered quite ! 
Would I had never drank so de^p 

Of dear Miss Porter's vat ; 
I only turn to life, and weep — 

There's no Romance in that ! 

No Bandits lurk — no turbaned Turk 

To Tunis bears me off — 
I hear no noises in the night 

Except my mother's cough — 
N^o Bleeding Spectre haunts the house, 

No shape — but owl or bat. 
Come flitting after moth or mouse — 

There's no Romance in that ! 



THERE 'S NO ROMANCE IN THAT. 201 

I have not any grief profound, 

Or secrets to confess. 
My story would not fetch a pound 

For A. K. Newman's press ; 
Instead of looking thin and pale, 

I 'm growing red and fat, 
As if I lived on beef and ale — 

There's no Romance in that ! 

It 's very hard, by land or sea 

Some strange event I court, 
But nothing ever comes to me 

That 's worth a pen's report : 
It really made my temper chafe, 

Each coast that I was at, 
I vowed, and railed, and came home safe — 

There 's no Romance in that ! 

The only time I had a chance 

At Brighton one fine day, 
My chestnut mare began to prance, 

Took fright, and ran away ; 
Alas ! no Captain of the Tenth 

To stop my steed came pat ; 
A Butcher caught the rein at length — 

There's no Romance in that ! 

Love — even love — goes smoothly on 

A railway sort of track — 
No flinty sire, no jealous Don ! 

No hearts upon the rack ; 
No Polydore, no Theodore — 

His ugly name is Mat, 
Plain Matthew Pratt and nothing more — 

There's no Romance in that ! 



202 THERE 'S XO ROMANCE IN THAT. 

He is not dark, he is not tall — 

His forehead 's rather low, 
He is not pensive — not at all, 

But smiles his teeth to show ; 
He comes from Wales and yet in size 

Is really but a sprat ; 
With sandy hair and greyish eyes — 

There's no Romance in that ! 

He wears no plumes or Spanish cloaks, 

Or long sword hanging down ; 
He dresses much like other folks, 

And commonly in brown ; 
His collar he will not discard. 

Or give up his cravat, 
Lord Byron-like — he 's not a Bard — 

There 's no Romance in that ! 

He 's rather bald, his sight is weak, 
He 's deaf in either drum ; 

Without a lisp he cannot speak, 
But then — he 's worth a plum. 

He talks of stocks and three per cents, 
By way of private chat, 

Of Spanish Bonds, and shares, and rents- 
There 's no Romance in that ! 

I sing — no matter what I sing, 

Di Tanti — or Crudel, 
Tom Bowling, or God save the King, 

Di piacer — All's well ; 
He knows no more about a voice 

For singing than a gnat — 
And as to Music "has no choice" — 

There's no Romance in that ! 



THERE 'S NO ROMANCE IN THAT. 203 

Of light guitar I cannot boast, 
He never serenades ; 

He writes, and sends it by the post, 
He does n't bribe the maids : 

No stealth, no hempen ladder — no I 
He comes with loud rat-tat 

That startles half of Bedford Row- 
There 's no Romance in that ! 

He comes at nine in time to choose 

His coffee— just two cups, 
And talks with Pa about the news, 

Repeats debates, and sups. 
John helps him with his coat aright, 

And Jenkins hands his hat ; 
My lover bows and sajs good night — 

There's no Romance in that! 

I 've long had Pa's and Ma's consent, 

Mj aunt she quite approves, 
Mj Brother wishes joy from Kent, 

None try to thwart our loves ; 
On Tuesday reverend Mr. Mace 

Will make me Mrs. Pratt, 
Of Number Twenty, Sussex Place — 

There's no Romance in that." 



204 THE schoolmaster's motto. 



THE SCHOOLMASTER'S MOTTO. 

*'The Admiral compelled them all to strike.'" — Life of NBLSOif. 

Hush ! silence in School — not a noise ! 

You shall soon see there 's nothing to jeer at, 
Master Marsh, most audacious of boys ! 

Come ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat !" 

So this morn, in the midst of the Psalm, 
The Miss Siff kins' s school you must leer at, 

You 're complained of — Sir ! hold out your palm — 
There ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat !" 

You wilful young rebel, and dunce ! 

This offence all your sins shall appear at, 
You shall have a good caning at once — 

There ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat .'" 

You are backward, you know, in each verb. 
And your pronouns you are not more clear at, 

But you 're forward enough to disturb — 
There ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat !" 

You said Master Twigg stole the plums, 
When the orchard he never was near at, 

I '11 not punish wrong fingers or thumbs — 
There ! — '' Palmam qui meruit ferat !" 

You make Master Taylor your butt, 

And this morning his face you threw beer at. 

And you struck him — do you like a cut? 
There! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat!" 



THE schoolmaster's MOTTO. 205 

Little Biddle you likewise distress, 

You are always his hair, or his ear at — 

He's my Opt^ Sir, and you are my Pess : 
There ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat !" 

Then you had a pitcht fight with young Rous, 

An offence I am always severe at I 
You discredit to Cicero-House ! 

There ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat !" 

You have made, too, a plot in the night 

To run off from the school that you rear at ! 

Come, your other hand, now. Sir — the right, 
There 1 — " Palmam qui meruit ferat !" 

I '11 teach you to draw, you young dog ! 

Such pictures as I 'm looking here at ! 
*' Old Mounseer making soup of a frog," 

There ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat !" 

You have run up a bill at a shop 

That in paying you '11 be a whole year at — ' 

You 've but twopence a week. Sir, to stop I 
There! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat!" 

Then at dinner you 're quite cock-a-hoop, 
And the soup you are certain to sneer at — 

I have sipped it — it 's very good soup — 
There ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat !" 

T' other day, when I fell o'er the form. 
Was my tumble a thing, Sir, to cheer at? 

Well for you that my temper 's not warm- 
There ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat 1" 



206 HUGGINS AND DUGGINS. 

Why, you rascal ! you insolent brat ! 

All my talking you don't shed a tear at, 
There — take that, Sir ! and that ! that ! and that ! 

There ! — " Palmam qui meruit ferat !" 



HUGGINS AND DUGGINS. 

A PASTORAL AFTER POPE. 

Two swains or clowns — but call them swains — 

While keeping flocks on Salisbury Plains, 

For all that tend on sheep as drovers 

Are turned to songsters, or to lovers, 

Each of the lass he called his dear 

Began to carol loud and clear. 

First Huggins sang, and Duggins then, 

In the way of ancient shepherd men ; 

Who thus alternate hitched in song, 

" All things by turns, and nothing long." 

HUGGINS. 

Of all the girls about our place, 
There's one beats all in form and face ; 
Search through all Great and Little Bumpstead, 
You '11 only find one Peggy Plumstead. 

DUGGINS. 

To groves and streams I tell my flame, 
I make the cliffs repeat her name : 
When I 'm inspired by gills and noggins, 
The rocks re-echo Sally Hoggins ! 



HUGGINS AND DUGGINS. 207 

HUGGINS. 

When I am walking in the grove, 
I think of Peggy as I 'rove. 
I 'd carve her name on every tree, 
But I don't know my A, B, C. 

DUGGINS. 

Whether I walk in hill or valley, 
I think of nothing else but Sally. 
I 'd sing her praise, but I can sing 
No song, except " God save the King.'* 

HUGGINS. 
My Peggy does all nymphs excel, 
And all confess she bears the bell ; — 
Where'er she goes swains flock together, 
Like sheep that follow the bellwether. 

DUGGINS. 

Sally is tall and not too straight — 
Those very poplar shapes I hate ; 
But something twisted like an S — 
A crook becomes a shepherdess. 

HUGGINS. 

When Peggy's dog her arms emprison. 
I often wish my lot was hisn ; 
How often I should stand and turn, 
To get a pat from hands like hern. 

DUGGINS. 

I tell Sail's lambs how blest they be, 

To stand about and stare at she ; 

But Avhen I look, she turns and shies, 

And won't bear none but their sheep's-eyes? 



208 HUGGINS AND DUGGINS. 

HUGGINS. 

Love goes with Peggy where she goes — 
Beneath her smile the garden grows ; 
Potatoes spring, and cabbage starts, 
'Tatoes have eyes, and cabbage hearts ! 

DUGGINS. 

Where Sally goes it 's always Spring, 
Her presence brightens every thing ; 
The sun smiles bright, but where her grin is, 
It makes brass farthings look like guineas. 

HUGGINS. 

For Peggy I can have no joy, 
She 's sometimes kind, and sometimes coy, 
And keeps me, by her wayward tricks, 
As comfortless as sheep with ticks. 

DUGGINS. 

Sally is ripe as June or May, 
And yet as cold as Christmas day ; 
For when she 's asked to change her lot, 
Lamb's wool — but Sally, she wool not. 

HUGGINS. 

Only with Peggy and with health, 
I 'd never wish for state or wealth ; 
Talking of having health and more pence, 
I 'd drink her health if I had fourpence. 

DUGGINS. 

Oh, how that day would seem to shine. 
If Sally's banns were read with mine ; 
She cries, when such a wish I carry, 
'' Marry come up !" but will not marry. 



A STORM AT HASTINGS, 



AND THE LITTLE UNKNOWN. 



'T WAS August — Hastings every day was filling — 
Hastings, that " greenest spot on memory's waste !' 
With crowds of idlers willing or unwilling 
To be bedipped — be noticed — or be braced, 
And all things rose a penny in a shilling. 
Meanwhile, from window and from door, in haste 
"Accommodation bills" kept coming down. 
Gladding "the world of letters" in that town. 

Each day poured in new coach-fulls of new cits, 
Flying from London smoke and dust annoying, 
Unmarried Misses hoping to make hits, 
And new-wed couples fresh from Tunbridge toying. 
Lacemen and placemen, ministers and wits, 
And quakers of both sexes, much enjoying 
A morning's reading by the ocean's rim. 
That sect delighting in the sea's broad brim. 

And lo ! amongst all these appeared a creature 
So small, he almost might a twin have been 
With Miss Crachami — dwarfish quite in stature, 
Yet well proportioned — neither fat nor lean, 
VOL. II 14 



210 A STORM AT HASTINGS. 

His face of marvellouslj pleasant feature, 
So short and sweet a man was never seen — 
All thought him charming at the first beginning — 
Alas, ere long they found him far too winning ! 

He seemed in love with chance — and chance repaid 

His ardent passion with her fondest smile. 

The sunshine of good luck, without a shade, 

He staked and won — and won and staked — the bile 

It stirred of many a man and many a maid, 

To see at every venture how that vile 

Small gambler snatched — and how he won them too — 

A living Pam, omnipotent at loo ! 

Miss Wiggins set her heart upon a box, 

'Twas handsome, rosewood, and inlaid with brass. 

And dreamt three times she garnished it with stocks 

Of needles, silks, and cottons — but alas ! 

She lost it wide awake. — We thought Miss Cox 

Was lucky — but she saw three caddies pass 

To that small imp ; — no living luck could loo him ! 

Sir Stamford would have lost his Raffles to him ! 

And so he climbed — and rode, and won — and walked, 

The wondrous topic of the curious swarm 

That haunted the Parade. Many were balked 

Of notoriety by that small form 

Pacing it up and down : — some even talked 

Of duckmg him — when lo ! a dismal storm 

Stepped in — one Friday, at the close of day — 

And every head was turned another way — 

Watching the grander guest. It seemed to rise 
Bulky and slow upon the southern brink 



A STOEM AT HASTINGS. 211 

Of the horizon — fanned by sultry sighs — 
So black and threatening, I cannot think 
Of any simile, except the skies 
Miss Wiggins sometime shades in Indian ink — • 
ik/is5-shapen blotches of such heavy vapor, 
They seem a deal more solid than her paper. 

As for the sea, it did not fret, and rave. 
And tear its waves to tatters, and so dash on 
The stony-hearted beach ; — some bards would have 
It always rampant, in that idle fashion — 
Whereas the waves rolled in, subdued and grave, 
Like schoolboys, when the master's in a passion, 
Who meekly settle in and take their places, 
With a very quiet aw^e on all their faces. 

Some love to draw the ocean with a head. 
Like troubled table-beer — and make it bounce. 
And froth, and roar, and fling — but this, I 've said, 
Surged in scarce rougher than a lady's flounce : — 
But then, a grander contrast thus it bred 
With the wild Avelkin, seeming to pronounce 
Something more awful in the serious ear. 
As one would whisper that a lion's near — 

Who just begins to roar : so the hoarse thunder 
Growled long — but low — a prelude note of death, 
As if the stifling clouds yet kept it under ; 
But still it muttered to the sea beneath 
Such a continued peal, as made us wonder 
It did not pause more oft to take its breath, 
Whilst we were panting with the sultry weather, 
And hardly cared to wed two words together, 



212 A STORM AT HASTINGS- 

• 

But watched the surlj advent of the storm, 
Much as the brown-cheeked planters of Barbadoes 
Must watch a rising of the Negro swarm : — 
Meantime it steered, like Odin's old Armadas, 
Right on our coast ; — a dismal, coal-black form ; — 
Many proud gaits were quelled — and all bravadoes 
Of folly ceased — and sundry idle jokers 
Went home to cover up their tongs and pokers. 

So fierce the lightning flashed. — In all their days 
The oldest smugglers had not seen such flashing, 
And they are used to many a pretty blaze. 
To keep their Hollands from an awkward clashing 
With hostile cutters in our creeks and bays : — 
And truly one could think, without much lashing 
The fancy, that those coasting clouds so awful 
And black, were fraught with spirits as unlawful. 

The gay Parade grew thin — all the fair crowd 
Vanished — as if they knew their own attractions — 
For now the lightning through a near hand cloud 
Began to make some very crooked fractions — 
Only some few remained that were not cowed, 
A few rough sailors, who had been in actions, 
And sundry boatmen, that with quick yeo's, 
Lest it should bloio — were pulling up the Rose : 

(No flower, but a boat) — some more hauling 
The Regent by the head : — another crew 
With that same cry peculiar to their calling — 
Were heaving up the Hope : — and as they knew 
The very gods themselves oft get a mauling 
In their own realms, the seamen wisely drew 
The Neptune rather higher on the beach, 
That he might lie beyond his billows' reach. 



A STORxM AT HASTINGS.* 213 

And norr the storm, with its despotic power, 
Had all usurped the azure of the skies, 
Making our daylight darker hj an hour, 
And some few drops — of an unusual size — 
Few and distinct — scarce twenty to the shower, 
Fell like huge tear-drops from a Giant's ejes — 
But then this sprinkle thickened in a trice 
And rained much harder — in good solid ice. 

Oh ! for a very storm of words to show 
How this fierce crash of hail came rushing o'er us ! 
Handel would make the gusty organs blow 
Grandly, and a rich storm in music score us ; — 
But even hi'g music seemed composed and low 
When we were handled by this Hailstone Chorus ; 
Whilst thunder rumbled, with its awful sound, 
And frozen comfits rolled along the ground — 

As big as bullets : — Lord ! how they did batter 
Our crazy tiles : — And now the lightning flashed 
Alternate with the dark, until the latter 
Was rarest of the two : — the gust too dashed 
So terribly, I thought the hail must shatter 
Some panes — and so it did — and first it smashed 
The very square where I had chose my station 
To watch the general illumination. 

Another, and another, still came in, 

And fell in jingling ruin at my feet. 

Making transparent holes that let me win 

Some samples of the storm : — Oh ! it was sweet 

To think I had a shelter for my skin, 

Culling them through these '" loopholes of retreat" — 

Which in a little we began to glaze — 

Chiefly with a jacktowel and some baize ! 



214 A STORM AT HASTINGS. 

By which, the cloud had passed o'erhead, but plajed 

Its crooked fires in constant flashes still, 

Just in our rear, as though it had arrayed 

Its heavy batteries at Fairlight Mill, 

So that it lit the town, and grandly made 

The rugged features of the Castle Hill 

Leap, like a birth, from chaos, into light, 

And then relapse into the gloomy night — 

As parcel of the cloud : — the clouds themselves, 
Like monstrous crags and summits everlasting, 
Piled each on each in most gigantic shelves, 
That Milton's devils were engaged in blasting. — 
We could e'en fancy Satan and his elves ' 
Busy upon those crags, and ever casting 
Huge fragments loose — and that we/e// the sound 
They made in falling to the startled ground. 

And so the tempest scowled away — and soon 
Timidly shining through its skirts of jet, 
We saw the rim of the pacific moon, 
Like a bright fish entangled in a net, 
Flashing its silver sides — how sweet a boon 
Seemed her sweet light, as though it would beget, 
With that fair smile, a calm upon the seas — 
Peace in the sky — and coolness in the breeze ! 

Meantime the hail had ceased : — and all the brood 
Of glaziers stole abroad to count their gains \ — ■ 
At every window, there were maids who stood 
Lamenting o'er the glass's small remains— 
Or with coarse linens made the fractions crood. 
Stanching the wind in all the wounded panes — 
Or, holding candles to the panes, in doubt : 
The wind resolved — blowing the candles out. 



A STOKM AT HASTINGS. 215 

No house was whole that had a southern front — 
No green-house hut the same mishap hefell ; — 
Bo1v-vfmdo^YS and 6e//-glasses here the hrunt— 

No sex in ghiss was spared ! For those who dwell 

On each hill-side, you might have swam a punt 
In any of their parlors ; — Mrs. Snell 
Was slopped out of her seat ; and Mr. Hitchin 
Had a ^oi^er-garden washed into a Kitchen. 

But still the sea was mild, and quite disclaimed 
The recent violence. — Each after each 
The gentle waves a gentle murmur framed, 
Tapping, like Woodpeckers, the hollow beach. 
Howbeit his iceather eye the seaman aimed 
Across the calm, and hinted by his speech 
A gale next morning — and Avhen morning broke 
There was a gale — " quite equal to bespoke." 

Before high water — (it were better far 
To christen it not water then, but waiter^ 
For then the tide is serving at the bar^ 
Rose such a swell — I never saw one greater 1 
Black, jagged billows rearing up in war 
Like ragged, roaring bears against the baiter, 
With lots of froth upon the shingle shed. 
Like stout poured out with a fine beachy head. 

No open boat was open to a fare, 
Or launched that morn on seven-shilling trips, 
No bathing- woman waded — none would dare 
A dipping in the Avave — but waived their dips, 
No sea-gull ventured on the stormy air, 
And all the dreary coast was clear of ships ; 
For two lea shores upon the river Lea 
Are not so perilous as one at sea. 



216 A STORM AT HASTINGS. 

Awe-struck we sat, and gazed upon the scene 
Before us in such horrid hurly-burlj — 
A boiling ocean of mixed black and green, 
A sky of copper-color, grim and surly — 
When lo, in that vast holloAV scooped between 
Two rolling Alps of water — white and curly ! 
We saw a pair of little arms a-skimming, 
Much like a first or last attempt at swimming ! 

Sometimes a hand — sometimes a little shoe — 
Sometimes a skirt — sometimes a hank of hair 
Just like a dabbled seaweed rose to view ; 
Sometimes a knee, sometimes a back was bare — • 
At last a frightful summerset he threw 
Right on the shingles. Any one could swear 
The lad was dead — without a chance of perjury, 
And battered by the surge beyond all surgery ! 

However, we snatched up the corse thus thrown, 
Intending, Christian-like, to sod and turf it, 
And after venting Pity's sigh and groan, 
Then Curiosity began with her fit ; 
And lo ! the features of the Small Unknown ! 
'Twas he that of the surf had had this surfeit ! — 
And in his fob, the cause of late monopolies, 
We found a contract signed Mephistophiles ! 

A bond of blood, whereby the sinner gave 

His forfeit soul to Satan in reversion, 

Providing in this world he was to have 

A lordship over luck, by whose exertion 

He might control the course of cards, and brave 

All throws of dice — but on a sea excursion 

The juggling Demon, in his usual vein, 

Seized the last cast — and Nicked him in the main ! 



LINES. 217 



LINES. 

TO A LADY ON HER DEPARTT7RE FOR INDIA. 

Go where the waves run rather Holborn-hillj, 
And tempests make a soda-water sea, 
Almost as rough as our rough Piccadilly, 

And think of me ! 

Go where the mild Madeira ripens her juice — 
A wine more praised than it deserves to be ! 
Go pass the Cape, just capable of ver-juice, 

And think of me ! 

Go where the Tiger in the darkness prowleth, 
Makino; a midnio;ht meal of he and she ; 
Go where the Lion in his hunger howleth, 

And tliink of me ! 

Go where the serpent dangerously coileth, 
Or lies along at full length like a tree, 
Go where the Suttee in her own soot broileth, 

And think of me ! 

Go where with human notes the Parrot dealetb 
In mono-/?o%-logue with tongue as free, 
And like a woman, all she can revealeth, 

And think of me ! 

Go to the land of muslin and nankeening, 
And parasols of straw where hats should be, 
Go to the land of slaves and palankeening, 

And think of me ! 



218 SONNET. 

Go to the land of Jungles and of vast hills, 
And tall bamboos — maj none bamboozle thee ! 
Go gaze upon their Elephants and Castles, 

And think of me ! 

Go where a cook must always be a currier, 
And parch the pepper 'd palate like a pea, 
Go where the fierce musquito is a worrier, 

And think of me ! 

Go where the maiden on a marriage plan goes, 
Consigned for wedlock to Calcutta's quay, 
Where woman goes for mart, the same as mangoes, 

And think of me ! 

Go where the sun is very hot and fervent, 
Go to the land of pagod and rupee. 
Where every black will be your slave and servant, 

And think of me ! 



SONNET. 
Along the Woodford road there comes a noise 
Of wheels, and Mr. Rounding' s neat postchaise 
Struggles along, drawn by a pair of bays. 
With Rev. Mr. Crow and six small Boys ; 
Who ever and anon declare their joys. 
With trumping horns and juvenile huzzas. 
At going home to spend their Christmas days, 
At changing Learning's pains for Pleasure's toys. 
Six weeks elapse, and down the Woodford way, 
A heavy coach drags six more heavy souls, 
But no glad urchins shout, no trumpets bray ; 
The carriage makes a halt, the gate-bell tolls, 
And little Boys walk in as dull and mum 
As six new scholars to the Deaf and Dumb. 



DECEMBER AND MAT. 219 



DECEMBER AND MAY. 

"Crabbed Age and Youth cannot live together." 

Shakspeare. 

Said Nestor, to his pretty wife, quite sorrowful one day, 
" Why, dearest, will you shed in pearls those lovely eyes 

away ? 
You ought to be more fortified j "-*-'' Ah, brute, be quiet; 

do, 
I know I 'm not so forty fied, nor fifty fied, as you ! 

" Oh, men are vile deceivers all, as I have ever heard, 
You 'd die for me, you swore, and I — I took you at your 

word. 
I was a tradesman's widow then — a pretty change I've 

made ; 
To live, and die the wife of one, a widower by trade !" 

" Come, come, my dear, these flighty airs declare, in sobe** 

truth, 
You want as much in age, indeed, as I can want in youth ; 
Besides, you said you liked old men, though now at me you 

huff." 
^' Why, yes," she said, " and so I do — but you 're not old 

enough !" 

'' Come, come, my dear, let 's make it up, and have a quiet 

hive; 
I '11 be the best of men — I mean — I '11 be the best alive! 
Your grieving so will kill me, for it cuts me to the core." — 
" I thank ye, sir, for telling me — for now I '11 grieve the 



more ; 



I" 



^^\J mVlXALi SXI!jrUIliKj±JL\jnO. 



MORAL REFLECTIONS ON THE CROSS OF ST. PAUL'S. 

The man that pays his pence, and goes 

Up to thy lofty cross, St. Paul, 
Looks over London's naked nose, 

Women and men : 

The world is all beneath his ken, 
He sits above the Ball. 
He seems on Mount Olympus' top, 
Among the Gods, by Jupiter ! and lets drop 
His eyes from the empyreal clouds 

On mortal crowds. 
Seen from these skies, 
How small those emmets in our eyes ! 

Some carry little sticks — and one 
His eggs — to warm them in the sun : 

Dear ! what a hustle, 

And bustle ! 
And there 's my aunt. I know her by her waist, 

So long and thin, 

And so pinched in, 
Just in the pismire taste. 
Oh ! what are men ? — Beings so small, 

That, should I fall 
Upon their little heads, I must 
Crush them by hundreds into dust ! 
And what is life ? and all its ages — 

There 's seven stages! 
Turnham Green ! Chelsea ! Putney ! Fulham I 

Brentford ! and Kew ! 

And Tooting, too ! 
And oh ! what \'ery little nags to pull 'em. 



i 



Yet each would seem a horse indeed, 
If here at Pauls tip-top we 'd got 'em; 

Although, like Cinderella's breed. 
They 're mice at bottom. 

Then let me not despise a horse, 
Though he looks small from Paul's high-cross ! 
Since he would be — as near the sky — 

Fourteen hands high. 
What is this world with London in its lap ? 

Mogg's Map. 
The Thames, that ebbs and flows in its broad channel ? 

A tidy kennel. 
The bridges stretching from its banks ? 

Stone planks. 
Oh me ! hence could I read an admonition 

To mad Ambition ! 
But that he would not listen to my call. 
Though I should stand upon the cross, and ball! 



A VALENTINE. 

Oh ! cruel heart I ere these posthumous papers 
Have met thine eyes, I shall be out of breath ; 

Those cruel eyes, like two funereal tapers, 
Have only lighted me the way to death. 

Perchance, thou wilt extinguish them in vapors, 
When I am gone, and green grass covereth 

Thy lover, lost ; but it will be in vain — 

It will not bring the vital spark again. 

Ah ! when those eyes, like tapers, burned so blue, 
It seemed an omen that we must expect 

The sprites of lovers : and it boded true, 
For I am half a sprite — a ghost elect ; 



Wherefore I write to thee this last adieu, 
With my last pen — before that I effect 
My exit from the stage ; just stopped before 
The tombstone steps that lead us to death's door. 

Full soon these living eyes, now liquid bright, 
Will turn dead dull, and wear no radiance, save 

They shed a dreary and mhuman light, 

Illumed withm by glow-worms of the grave ; 

These ruddy cheeks, so pleasant to the sight. 
These lusty legs, and all the limbs I have, 

Will keep Death's carnival, and, foul or fresh, 

Must bid farewell, a long farewell to flesh ! 

Yea, and this very heart, that dies for thee, 
As broken victuals to the worms will go ; 

And all the world will dine again but me — 
For I shall have no stomach ; — and I know. 

When I am ghostly, thou wilt sprightly be 
As now thou art : but will not tears of woe 

Water thy spnnts with remorse adjunct. 

When thou dost pause, and think of the defunct ? 

And when thy soul is buried in a sleep. 
In midnight solitude, and little dreaming 

Of such a spectre — what, if I should creep, 
Withm thy presence m such dismal seeming? 

Thine eyes will stare themselves awake, and weep. 
And thou wilt cross thyself with treble screaming 

And pray with mingled penitence and dread 

That I were less alive — or not so dead. 

Then will thy heart confess thee, and reprove 
This wilful homicide which thou hast done : 



And the sad epitaph of so much love 
Will eat into mj heart, as if in stone : 

And all the lovers that around thee move, 
Will read m j fate and tremble for their own • 

And strike upon their heartless breasts, and sigh, 



" Man, born of woman, must of woman die !' 



Mine eyes grow dropsical — I can no more — 
And what is written thou maj'st scorn to read, 

Shutting thy tearless eyes. — 'Tis done — 'tis o'er — 
My hand is destined for another deed. 

But one last word wrung from its aching core, 
And my lone heart m silentness will bleed ; 

Alas ! it ought to take a life to tell 

That one last word — that fare — fare — fare thee well 



SONNET ON STEAM. 



BY AN UNDER-OSTLER. 



I WISH I livd a Thowsen year Ago 

Wurking for Sober six and Seven milers 
And dubble Stages runnen safe and slo 

The Orsis cum in Them days to the Bilers 
But Now by meens of Powers of Steem forces 

A-turning Coches into Smoakey Kettels 
The Bilers seam a Gumming to the Orses 

And Helps and naggs Will sune be out of Vittels 
Poor Bruits I wunder How we bee to Liv 

When sutch a change of Orses is our Faits 
No nothink need Be sifted in a Siv 

May them Blowd ingins all Blow up their Grates 
And Theaves of Osiers crib the Coles and Giv 

Their blackgard Hannimuls a Feed of Slaits ! 



224 A RECIPE — FOR CIVILIZATION". 



A RECIPE— FOR CIVILIZATION. 

The following Poem— is from the pen of DOCTOR KITCHENER!— the most hete- 
rogeneous of authors, but at the same time — in the Sporting Latin of Mr. Egan — a real 
Homo-genius, or a Genius of a Man t In the Poem, his CULINARY ENTHUSIASM, 
as usual — boils over ! and makes it seem written, as ho describes himself (see The 
Cook's Oracle, — with the Spit in one hand! — and the Frying Pan in the other — while 
in the style of the rhymes it is Iludibrastic — as if in the ingredients of Versification 
Le had been assisted by his BUTLER ! 

As a Head Cook, Optician — Physician, Music Master — Domestic Economist and 
Death-bed Attorney! — I have celebrated The Author elsewhere with approbation; — 
and cannot now place him upon the Table as a Poet — without st.U being his LAUDER, 
aphrase which those persons whose course of classical reading recalls the INFAMOUS 
FORGERY on the Immortal Bard of Avon ! — will find easy to understand. 

Surely, those sages err who teach 
That man is known from brutes by speech. 
Which hardly severs man from woman, 
But not th' inhuman from the human — 
Or else might parrots claim affinity, 
And dogs be doctors by latinity — 
Not t' insist (as might be shown) 
That beasts have gibberish of their own, 
Which once was no dead tongue, tho' we 
Since Esop's days have lost the key ; 
Nor yet to hint dumb men — and, still, not 
Beasts that could gossip though they will not, 
But play at dummy like the monkeys, 
^ Tor fear mankind should make them flunkies. 
Neither can man be known by feature 
Or form, because so like a creature, 
That some grave men could never shape 
Which is the aped and which the ape, 
Nor by his gait, nor by his height, 
Nor. yet because he 's black or white, 
But rational —ioiY so we call 
The only Cooking Animal! 



A RECIPE — FOR CIVILIZATION. 22o 

The only one who brings his bit 
Of dinner to the pot or spit ; 
For where "s the hon eer was hasty 
To put his ven'son in a pasty? 
Ergo, by logic, we repute 
That he who cooks is not a brute — 
But Equus brutum est, which means, 
If a horse had sense he "d boil his beans, 
Nay, no one but a horse would forage 
On naked oats instead of porridge, 
Which proves, if brutes and Scotchmen vary, 
The difference is culinary. 
Further, as man is known by feeding 
From brutes — so men from men, in breeding 
Are still distinguished as they eat. 
And raw m manners, raw in meat — 
Look at the polished nations, hight 
The civilized — the most polite 
Is that which bears the praise of nations 
For dressing eggs two hundred fashions, 
Whereas, at savage feeders look — 
The less refined the less they cook ; 
' From Tartar grooms that merely straddle 
Across a steak and warm their saddle, 
Down to the Abyssinian squaw 
That bolts her chops and collops raw, 
And, like a wild beast, cares as little 
To dress her person as her victual — 
For gowns, and gloves, and caps, and tippets, 
Are beauty's sauces, spice, and sippets. 
And not by shamble bodies put on. 
But those who roast and boil their mutton ; 
So Eve and Adam wore no dresses 

VOL. II. 15 



226 A RECIPE — FOR CIVILIZATION. 

Because they lived on water cresses, 

And till thej learned to cook their crudities, 

Went blind as beetles to then- nudities. 

For niceness comes from th' inner side, 

(As an ox is drest before his hide,) 

And when the entrail loathes vulgarity 

The outward man will soon cull rarity, 

For 'tis th' effect of what we eat 

To make a man look like his meat, 

As insects show their food's complexions ; 

Thus fopling clothes are like confections. 

But who, to feed a jaunty coxcomb, 

Would have an Abyssinian ox come ? 

Or serve a dish of fricassees, 

To clodpoles in a coat of frize ? 

Whereas a black would call for buffalo 

Alive — and, no doubt, eat the offal too. 

Now (this premised), it follows then 

That certain culinary men 

Should first go forth with pans and spits 

To bring the heathens to their wits, 

(For all wise Scotchmen of our century 

Know that first steps are almientary ; 

And, as we have proved, flesh pots and saucepans 

Must pave the way for Wilberforce plans;) 

But Bunyan erred to think the near gate 

To take man's soul, was battering Ear gate, 

When- reason should have worked her course 

As men of war do — when their force 

Can't take a town by open courage, 

They steal an entry with its forage. 

What reverend bishop, for example, 

Could preach horned Apis from his temple? 



I 



A RECIPE — FOR CIVILIZATION. 227 

Whereas a cook would soon unseat him 
And make his own churchwardens*eat him. 
Not Irving could convert those vermin 
Th' Anthropophages, by a sermon ; 
Whereas your Osborne,* in a trice, 
Would " take a shin of beef and spice," — 
And raise them such a savory smother, 
No negro would devour his brother, 
But turn his stomach round as loth 
As Persians, to the old black broth — 
For knowledge oftenest makes an entry, 
As well as true love, thro' the pantry, 
Where beaux that came at first for feeding 
Grow gallant men and get good breeding ; — 
Exempli gratia — in the West, 
Ship-traders say there swims a nest 
Lined Avith ])lack natives, like a rookery, 

But coarse as carrion crows at cookerv. — 

1/ 

This race, though now called 0. Y. E. men, 
(To show they are more than A. B. C. men,) 
Was once so ignorant of our knacks 
They laid their mats upon their backs, 
And grew their quartern loaves for luncheon 
On trees that baked them in the sunshine. 
As for their bodies, they were coated, 
(For painted things are so denoted ; ) 
But, the naked truth is stark primevals. 
That said their prayers to timber devils, 
Allowed polygamy — dwelt in wig-wams — 
And, when they meant a feast, ate big yams. — 
iVnd why ? — because their savage nook 

* Cook to tlie late Sir John Banks. 



228 A RECIPE FOR CIVILIZATION. 

Had ne'er been visited bj Cook — 
And so thej f^ed till our great chief, 
Brought them, not Methodists, but beef 
In tubs — and taught them how to live, 
Knowing it was too soon to give, 
Just then, a homily on their sins, 
(For cooking ends ere grace begins,) 
Or hand his tracts to the untractable 
Till thej could keep a more exact table — 
For nature has her proper courses. 
And wild men must be backed like horses. 
Which, jockeys know, are never fit 
For riding till they ' ve had a bit 
I ' the mouth ; but then, with proper tackle, 
You may trot them to a tabernacle. 
Ergo (I say) he first made changes 
In the heathen modes, by kitchen ranges, 
And taught the king's cook, by convincing 
Process, that chewing was not mincing, 
And in her black fist thrust a bundle 
Of tracts abridged fromi Glasse and Rundell, 
Where, ere she had read beyond Welsh rabbits, 
She saw the spareness of her habits, 
And round her loins put on a striped 
Towel, where fingers might be wiped, 
And then her breast clothed like her ribs, 
(For aprons lead of course to bibs,) 
And, by the time she had got a meat- 
Screen, veiled her back, too, from the heat- 
As for her gravies and her sauces, 
(Tho' they reformed the royal fauces,) 
Her forcemeats and ragouts — I praise not, 
Because the legend further says not, 



LINES. 229 

Except, she kept each Christian high-daj, 
And once upon a fat good Fry-day 
Ran short of logs, and told the Pagan, 
That turned the spit, to chop up Dagon ! — 



LINES 

TO A FRIEND AT COBHAM. 



'Tis pleasant, when we 've absent friends, 
Sometimes to hob and nob 'em 

With Memory's glass — at such a pass 
Remember me at Cobham ! 

Have pigs you will, and sometimes kill, 

But if you sigh and sob 'em, 
And cannot eat your home-grown meat, 

Remember me at Cobham ! 

Of hen and cock, you '11 have a stock, 
And death will oft unthrob 'em — 

A country chick is good to pick — 
Remember me at Cobham ! 

Some orchard trees of course you '11 lease, 
And boys will sometimes rob 'em, 

A friend (you know) before a foe — 
Remember me at Cobham ! 

You '11 sometimes have wax-lighted rooms, 
And friends of course to mob 'em. 

Should you be short of such a sort, 
Remember me at Cobham ! 



230 A GOOD DIRECTION. 



A GOOD DIRECTION. 

A CERTAIN gentleman, whose yellow cheek 
Proclaimed he had not been in living quite 

An Anchorite — 
Indeed, he scarcely ever knew a well day ; 
At last, by friends' advice, was led to seek 
A surgeoii of great note — named Aberfeldie. 

A very famous Author upon Diet, 
Who, better starred than Alchemists of old, 
By dint of turning mercury to gold, 
Had settled at his country house in quiet. 

Our Patient, after some impatient rambles 
Thro' Enfield roads, and Enfield lanes of brambles. 
At last, to make inquiry had the nous — 
" Here, my good man. 
Just tell me if you can, 
Pray which is Mr. Aberfeldie's house?" 
The man thus stopped — perusing for a while 
The yellow visage of the man of bile, 
At last made answer, with a broadish grin : 
'' Why, turn to right — and left — and right agin, 
The road's direct — you cannot fail to go it." 

" But stop ! my worthy fellow ! — one word more — 
From other houses how am I to know it !" 

' How ! — why you '11 see blue yillars at the door !" 



TO =^ * =^ * * 233 



SONNET. 

Allegory — A moral vehicle.— Dictionaet, 

I HAD a Gig-Horse, and I called him Pleasure, 

Because on Sundays, for a little jaunt, 
He was so fast and showy, quite a treasure ; 

Although he sometimes kicked, and shied aslant 
I had a Chaise, and christened it Enjoyment, 

With yellow body, and the wheels of red, 
Because 't was only used for one employment, 

Namely, to go wherever Pleasure led. 
I had a wife, her nickname was Delight ; 

A son called Frolic, who was never still : 
Alas ! how often dark succeeds to bright ? 

Delight was thrown, and Frolic had a spill, 
Enjoyment was upset and shattered quite. 

And Pleasure fell a splitter on Paine' s Hill! 



nnr) ***** 

WITH A FLASK OF RHINE WATER. 

The old Catholic City was still 

In the Minster the vespers were sung, 
And, re-echoed in cadences shrill. 

The last call of the trumpet had rung ; 
While across the broad stream of the Rhine, 

The full Moon cast a silvery zone ; 
And, methought, as I gazed on its shine, 

'' Surely, that is the Eau de Cologne." 



^iSO A GOOD DIRECTION. 



A GOOD DIRECTION. 

A CERTAIN gentleman, whose yellow cheek 
Proclaimed he had not been in living quite 

An Anchorite — 
Indeed, he scarcely ever knew a well day ; 
At last, by friends' advice, was led to seek 
A surgeon of great note — named Aberfeldie. 

A very fimous Author upon Diet, 
Who, better starred than Alchemists of old. 
By dint of turning mercury to gold, 
Had settled at his country house in quiet. 

Our Patient, after some impatient rambles 
Thro' Enfield roads, and Enfield lanes of brambles, 
At last, to make inquiry had the nous — 
" Here, my good man, 
Just tell me if you can, 
Pray which is Mr. Aberfeldie' s house ?" 
The man thus stopped — perusing for a while 
The yellow visage of the man of bile, 
At last made answer, with a broadish grin : 
" Why, turn to right — and left — and right agin, 
The road's direct — you cannot fail to go it." 

" But stop ! my worthy fellow ! — one word more — 
From other houses how am I to know it !" 

' How ! — why you '11 see blue pillars at the door !" 



TO * =^ * * * 233 



SONNET. 

Allegory — A moral vehicle.— Dictionaet. 

I HAD a Gig-Horse, and I called him Pleasure, 

Because on Sundays, for a little jaunt, 
He was so fast and showy, quite a treasure ; 

Although he sometimes kicked, and shied aslant 
I had a Chaise, and christened it Enjoyment, 

With yellow body, and the wheels of red. 
Because 't was only used for one employment. 

Namely, to go wherever Pleasure led. 
I had a wife, her nickname was Delight ; 

A son called Frolic, who was never still : 
Alas ! how often dark succeeds to bright ? 

Delight was thrown, and Frolic had a spill, 
Enjoyment was upset and shattered quite. 

And Pleasure fell a splitter on Paine' s Hill ! 



mrv ***** 

WITH A FLASK OF RHINE WATER, 

The old Catholic City was still 

In the Minster the vespers were sung, 
And, re-echoed in cadences shrill, 

The last call of the trumpet had rung ; 
While across the broad stream of the Rhine, 

The full Moon cast a silvery zone ; 
And, methought, as I gazed on its shine, 

" Surely, that is the Eau de Cologne." 



234 A TRUE STORY. 

It had an universal sting ; 

One touch of that extatic stump 

Could jerk his limbs, and make him jump, 

Just like a puppet on a string ; 

And what was worse than all, it had 

A way of making others bad. 

There is, as many know, a knack, 

With certain farming undertakers, 

And this same tooth pursued their track, 

By adding achers still to achers ! 

One way there is, that has been judged 

A certain cure, but Hunks was loth 

To pay the fee, and quite begrudged 

To lose his tooth and money both ; 

In fact, a dentist and the wheel 

Of Fortune are a kindred cast, 

For after all is drawn, you feel 

It 's paying for a blank at last ; 

So Hunks went on from week to week, 

And kept his torment in his cheek ; 

Oh ! how it sometimes set him rocking, 

With that perpetual gnaw — gnaw — gnaw, 

His moans and groans were truly shocking 

And loud — altho' he held his jaw. 

Many a tug he gave his gum. 

And tooth, but still it would not come. 

The' tied by string to some firm thing, 

He could not draAV it, do his best. 

By draw'rs, altho' he tried a chest. 

At last, but after much debating. 

He joined a score of mouths in waiting, 



A TRUE STORY. 235 

Like his, to have their troubles out. 

And sight it was to look about 

At twenty faces making faces, 

With many a rampant trick and antic, 

For all were very horrid cases, 

And made their owners nearly frantic. 

A little wicket now and then 

Took one of these unhappy men, 

And out again the victim rushed, 

While eyes and mouth together gushed ; 

At last arrived our hero's turn. 

Who plunged his hands in both his pockets, 

And down he sat, prepared to learn 

How teeth are charmed to quit their sockets. 

Those who have felt such operations, 
Alone can guess the sort of ache, 
When his old tooth began to break 
The thread of old -associations ; 
It touched a string in every part, 
It had so many tender ties ; 
One chord seemed wrenching at his heart, 
And two were tugging at his eyes ; 
'' Bone of his bone," he felt of course. 
As husbands do in such divorce ; 
At last the fengs gave way a little. 
Hunks gave his head a backward jerk, 
And lo ! the cause of all this work, 
Went — where it used to send his victual I 

The monstrous pain of this proceeding 

Had not so numb"d his miser wit, 

But in this slip he saw a hit 

To save, at least, his purse from bleeding; 



236 A TRUE STORY. 

So when the dentist sought his fees, 

Quoth Hunks, • Let s linish, if you please.'* 

" How finish ? why it s out !"' — " Oh ! no — 

I 'm none of your beforehand tippers, 

'Tis you are out, to argue so ; 

My tooth is in my head no doubt, 

But as you say you pulled it out, 

Of course it 's there — between your nippers." 

" Zounds ! sir, d' ye think I 'd sell the truth 

To get a fee? no, wretch, I scorn it." 

But Hunks still asked to see the tooth, 

And swore by gum ! he had not drawn it. 

His end obtained, he took his leave^ 

A secret chuckle in his sleeve ; 

The joke was worthy to produce one, 

To think, by favor of his wit, 

How well a dentist had been bit 

By one old stump, and that a loose one ! 

The thing was worth a laugh, but mirth 
Is still the frailest thing on earth : 
Alas ! how often when a joke 
Seems in our sleeve, and safe enough, 
There comes some unexpected stroke, 
And hangs a weeper on the cuff! 
Hunks had not whistled half a mile, 
When, planted right against a stile. 
There stood his foeman, Mike Mahoney. 
A vagrant reaper, Irish-born, 
That helped to reap our miser's corn, 
But had not helped to reap his money, 
A fact that Hunks remembered quickly ; 
His whistle all at once was quelled, 



A TRUE STORY. 237 

And when he saw how Michael held 
His sickle, he felt rather sickly. 

Nine souls in ten, with half his fright, 
Would soon have paid the bill at sight, 
But misers (let observers watch it) 
Will never part with their delight 
Till well demanded by a hatchet — 
They live hard — and they die to match it. 
Thus Hunks prepared for Mike's attacking, 
Resolved not yet to pay the debt, 
But let him take it out in hacking ; 
However, Mike began to stickle 
In word before he used the sickle ; 
But mercy was not long attendant : 
From words at last he took to blows 
And aimed a cut at Hunks's nose ; 
That made it what some folks are not — 
A member very independent. 

Heaven knows how far this cruel trick 

Might still have led, but for a tramper 

That came in danger's very nick, 

To put Mahoney to the scamper. 

But still compassion met a damper ; 

There lay the severed nose, alas I 

Beside the daisies on the grass, 

''Wee, crimson-tipt" as well as they, 

According to the poet's lay : 

And there stood Hunks, no sight for laughter ! 

Away ran Hodge to get assistance, 

With nose in hand, which Hunks ran after, 

But somewhat at unusual distance. 

In many a little country place 



288 A TRUE STORY. 

It is a verj Gommon case 

To have but one residing doctor, 

Whose practice rather seems to be 

No practice, but a rule of three. 

Physician — surgeon — drug-decoctor ; 

Thus Hunks was forced to go once more 

Where he had ta'en his tooth before. 

His mere name made the learned man hot — 

'' What ! Hunks again within my door ! 

I'll pull his nose ;" quoth Hunks, " You cannot." 

The doctor looked and saw the case 

Plain as the nose not on his face. 

'' ! hum — ha — yes — I understand." 

But then arose a long demur, 

For not a finger would he stir 

Till he was paid his fee in hand ; 

That matter settled, there they were, 

With Hunks well strapped upon his chair. 

The opening of a surgeon's job — 

His tools, a chestful or a drawerful — - 

Are always something very awful, 

And give the heart the strangest throb ; 

But never patient in his funks 

Looked half so like a ghost as Hunks, 

Or surgeon half so like a devil 

Prepared for some infernal revel : 

His huge black eye kept rolling, rolling, 

Just like a bolus in a box. 

His fury seemed above controling, 

He bellowed like a hunted ox : 

'' Now, swindling wretch, I '11 show thee how 

We treat such cheating knaves as thou ; 



A TRUE STORY. 239 

Oh ! sweet is this revenge to sup ; 
I have thee bj the nose — it 's now 
Mj turn — and I will turn it up." 

Guess how the miser liked the scurvy 

And cruel way of venting passion ; 

The snubbing folks in this new fashion 

Seemed quite to turn him topsy-turvy ; 

He uttered pray'rs, and groans, and curses. 

For things had often gone amiss 

And wrong w^ith him before, but this 

Would be the worst of all reverses ! 

In fancy he beheld his snout 

Turned upward like a pitcher's spout ; 

There was another grievance yet, 

And fancy did not fail to show it, 

That he must throw a summerset, 

Or stand upon his head to blow it. 

And was there then no argument 

To change the doctor's vile intent. 

And move his pity ? — ^yes, in truth, 

And that was — paying for the tooth. 

*'' Zounds! pay for such a stump ! I'd rather^ /' 

But here the menace went no farther, 

For with his other ways of pinching, 

Hunks had a miser's love of snuff, 

A recollection strong enough 

To cause a very serious flinching ; 

In short, he paid and had the feature 

Replaced as it was meant by nature ; 

For tho' by this 't was cold to handle, 

(No corpse's could have felt more horrid,) 

And white just like an end of candle. 



240 EPIGRAMS. 

The doctor deemed and proved it too, 
That noses from the nose will do 
As well as noses from the forehead ; 
So, fixed by dint of rag and lint, 
The part was bandaged up and muffled. 
The chair unfastened, Hunks arose, 
And shuffled out, for once unshuffled ; 
And as he went these words he snuffled — 
" Well, this is 'paying through the nose.'" 



EPIGRAMS 

COMPOSED ON READING A DIARY LATELY PUBLISHED. 

That flesh is grass is now as clear as day, 
To any but the merest purblind pup, 

Death cuts it down, and then, to make her hay. 
My Lady B comes and rakes it up. 



THE LAST WISH. 

When I resign this world so briary. 
To have across the Styx my ferrying, 

O, may I die without a diary ! 

And be interred without a BuRY-ing I 



The poor dear dead have been laid out in vain, 
Turned into cash, they are laid out again ! 



THE MONKEY-MARTYR. 241 



THE MONKEY-MARTYR. 

A FABLE. 

" God help thee, said I, but I 'II let thee out, cost what it will : so I turned about 
the cage to get to the door." — Sterne. 

'Tis strange, what awkward figures and odd capers 
Folks cut, who seek their doctrine from the papers ; 
But there are many shallow politicians 
Who take their bias from bewildered journals — 

Turn state-physicians, 
And make themselves fools' -cap of the diurnals. 

One of this kind, not human, but a monkey. 
Had read himself at last to this sour creed — 
That he was nothing but Oppression's flunkey, 
And man a tyrant over all his breed. 

He could not read 
Of niggers whipt, or over-trampled weavers, 
But he applied their wrongs to his own seed. 
And nourished thoughts that threw him into fevers. 
His very dreams were full of martial beavers, 
And drilling Pugs, for liberty pugnacious, 

To sever chains vexatious : 
In fact, he thought that all his injured line 
Should take up pikes in hand, and never drop 'em 
Till they had cleared a road to Freedom's shrine — 
Unless perchance the turnpike men should stop 'em. 

Full of this rancor. 
Pacing one day beside St. Clement Danes, 

It came into his brains 
To give a look in at the Crown and Anchor ; 
VOL. II m 



242 THE MONKEY-MARTYR. 

Where certain solemn sages of the nation 

Were at that moment in deliberation 

How to relieve the wide world of its chains, 

Pluck despots down, 

And thereby croAvn 
Whitee- as well as blackee-man-cipation. 
Pug heard the speeches with great approbation, 
And gazed with pride upon the Liberators ; 

To see mere coal-heavers 

Such perfect Bolivars — 
Waiters of inns sublimed to innovators, 
And slaters dio;nified as legislators — 
Small publicans demanding (such their high sense 
Of liberty) an universal license— 
And pattern-makers easing Freedom's clogs — 

The whole thing seemed 

So fine, he deemed 
The smallest demagogues as great as Gogs I 

Pug, with some curious notions in his noddle, 
Walked out at last, and turned into the Strand, 

To the left hand, 
Conning some portion of the previous twaddle, 
And striding with a step that seemed designed 
To represent the mighty March of Mind, 

Instead of that slow waddle 
Of thought, to which our ancestors inclined — 
No wonder, then, that he should quickly find 
He stood in front of that intrusive pile, 

Where Cross keeps many a kind 

Of bird confined, 
And free-born animal, in durance vile — 
A thought that stirred up all the monkey-bile 1 



THE MONKEY-MARTYR. 243 

The window stood ajar — 

It was not far, 
Nor, like Parnassus, verj hard to climb — 
The hour was verging on the supper-time, 
And many a growl was sent through many a bar. 
Meanwhile Pug scrambled upward like a tar, 

And soon crept in, 

Unnoticed in the din 
Of tuneless throats, that made the attics ring 
With all the harshest notes that they could bring ; 

For like the Jews, 

Wild beasts refuse 
In midst of their captivity— to sing. 

Lord ! how it made him chafe, 
Full of his new emancipating zeal. 
To look around upon this brute-bastille. 
And see the king of creatures in — a safe ! 
The desert's denizen in one small den, 
Swallowing slavery's most bitter pills — 
A bear in bars unbearable. And then 
The fretful porcupine, with all its quills, 

Imprisoned in a pen ! 
A tiger limited to four feet ten ; 

And, still worse lot, 

A leopard to one spot, 

An elephant enlarged. 

But not discharged ; 
(It was before the elephant was shot ;) 
A doleful wanderow, that wandered not ; 
An ounce much disproportioned to his pound. 

Pug's wrath waxed hot 
To gaze upon these captive creatures round ; 



244 THE MONKEY-MARTYR. 

Whose claws — all scratching — gave him full assurance 
They found their durance vile of vile endurance. 

He went above — a solitary mounter 

Up gloomy stairs — and saw a pensive group 

Of hapless fowls — 

Cranes, vultures, oavIs, 
In fact, it was a sort of Poultry-Compter, 
Where feathered prisoners were doomed to droop : 
Here sat an eagle, forced to make a stoop, 
Not from the skies, but his impending roof; 

And there aloof, 
A pining ostrich, moping in a coop ; 
With other samples of the bird creation. 
All caged against their powers and their wills, 
And cramped in such a space, the longest bills 
Were plainly bills of least accommodation. 
In truth, it was a very ugly scene 
To fall to any liberator's share, 
To see those winged fowls, that once had been 
Free as the wind, no freer than fixed aii\ 

His temper little mended, 
Pug from this Bird-cage Walk at last descended 

Unto the lion and the elephant, 

His bosom in a pant 
To see all nature's Free List thus suspended, 
And beasts deprived of what she had intended. 

They could not even prey 

In their OAvn way ; 
A hardship alwiiys reckoned quite prodigious. 

Thus he revolved — 

And soon resolved 
To give them freedom, civil and religious. 



THE MONKEY-MARTYR. 245 

That night, there were no country cousins, raw 
From Wales to view the lion and his kin : 
The keeper's ejes were fixed upon a saw ; 
The saw was fixed upon a bullock's shin : 

Meanwhile with stealthy paw, 

Pug hastened to withdraw 
The bolt that kept the king of brutes within. 
Now, monarch of the forest ! thou shalt win 
Precious enfranchisement — thy bolts are undone ; 
Thou art no longer a degraded creature. 
But loose to roam with liberty and nature ; 
And free of all the jungles about London — 
All Hampstead's healthy desert lies before thee ! 
Methinks I see thee bound from Cross's ark, 
Full of the native instinct that comes o'er thee, 

And turn a rans-er 

o 

Of Hounslow Forest, and the Regent's Park — 

Thin Rhodes' s cows — the mail-coach steeds endanger — • 

And gobble parish watchmen after dark : — 

Methinks I see thee, with the early lark, 

Stealing to Merlin's cave — {thy cave) — Alas, 

That such bright visions should not come to pass I 

Alas for freedom, and for freedom's hero 1 

Alas, for liberty of life and limb ! 
For Pug had only half unbolted Nero, 

When Nero bolted him I 



246 CRANIOLOGY. 



CRANIOLOGY. 



'Tis strange how like a very dunce, 

Man — with his bumps upon his sconce, 

Has lived so long, and yet no knowledge he 

Has had, till lately, of Phrenology — 

A science that by simple dint of 

Head-combing he should find a hint of, 

When scratching o'er those little pole-hills, 

The faculties throw up like mole-hills ; — • 

A science that, in very spite 

Of all his teeth, ne'er came to light, 

For tho' he knew his skull had grinders^ 

Still there turned up no organ finders. 

Still sages wrote, and ages fled, 

And no man's head came in his head — 

Not even the pate of Erra Pater, 

Knew aught about its pia mater. 

At last great Dr. Gall bestirs him — 

I don't know but it might be Spurzheim — 

Tho' native of a dull and slow land. 

And makes partition of our Poll-land ; 

At our Acquisitiveness guesses, 

And all those necessary nesses 

Indicative of human habits, 

All burrowing in the head like rabbits. 

Thus Veneration he made known, 

Had got a lodging at the Crown : 

And Music (see Deville's example) 

A set of chambers in the Temple : 

That Language taught the tongues close by, 

And took in pupils thro' the eye, 



CRANIOLOGY. 247 

Close bj his neighbor Computation, 
Who taught the eyebrows numeration. 

The science thus — to speak in fit 

Terms — having struggled from its nit, 

Was seized on bj a swarm of Scotchmen, 

Those scientifical hotch-potch men, 

Who have at least a penny dip 

And wallop in all doctorship, 

Just as in making broth they smatter 

By bobbing twenty things in water ; 

These men, I say, made quick appliance 

And close, to phrenologic science : 

For of all learned themes whatever 

That schools and colleges deliver, 

There 's none they love so near the bodies, 

As analyzing their ovfn noddles, 

Thus in a trice each northern blockhead 

Had got his fingers in his shock head. 

And of his bumps w^as Imbbliiig yet w^orse 

Than poor Miss Capulet's dry wet-nurse ; 

Till havino; been sufficient rani^ers 

Of their own heads, they took to strangers', 

And found m Presbyterians' polls 

The things they hated in their souls ; 

For Presbyterians hear with passion 

Of organs joined with veneration. 

No kind there was of human pumpkin 

But at its bumps it had a bumpkin ; 

Down to the very lowest gullion, 

And oiliest scull of oily scullion. 

No great man died Init this they did do, 

They begged his cranium of his widow : 



248 CRANIOLOGY. 

No murderer died bj law disaster, 
But thej took off his sconce in plaster ; 
For thereon they could show depending 
" The head and front of his offending," 
How that his philanthropic bump 
Was mastered b j a baser lump ; 
For every bump (these wags insist) 
Has its direct antagonist, 
Each striving stoutly to prevail, 
Like horses knotted tail to tail ; 
And many a stiff and sturdy battle 
Occurs between these adverse cattle. 
The secret cause, beyond all question, 
Of aches ascribed to indigestion — 
Whereas 'tis but two knobby rivals 
Tugging together like sheer devils, 
Till one gets mastery, good or sinister, 
And comes in like a new prime-minister. 

Each bias in some master node is : — 
What takes M'Adam wdiere a road is, 
To hammer little pebbles less? 
His organ of Destructiveness. 
What makes great Joseph so encumber 
Debate ? a lumping lump of Number : 
Or Malthus rail at babies so ? 
The smallness of his Philopro — 
What severs man and wife ? a simple 
Defect of the Adhesive pimple : 
Or makes weak women go astray ? 
Their bumps are more in fault than they. 
These facts being found and set in order 
By grave M.D.'s beyond the Border. 



A PARTHIAN GLANCE. 249 

To make them for some few months eternal, 
Were entered monthly in a journal, 
That many a northern sage still writes in, 
And throws his little Northern Lights in, 
And proves and proves about the phrenos, 
A great deal more than I or he knows. 
How Music suffers, par exemple^ 
By wearing tight hats round the temple ; 
What ills great boxers have to fear 
From blisters put behind the ear : 
And how a porter's Veneration 
Is hurt by porter's occupation : 
Whether shillelahs in reality 
May deaden Individuality : 
Or tongs and poker be creative 
Of alterations in the Amative : 
If falls from scaffolds make us less 
Inclined to all Constructiveness : 
With more such matters, all applying 
To heads — and therefore Aeac/ifying. 



A PARTHIAN GLANCE. 

"Sweet Memory, wafted by thy gentle gale, 
Oft up the stream of time I tura my sail." 

ROOKRS. 

Come, my Crony, let's think upon far-away days, 

And lift up a little Oblivion" s veil ; 
Let 's consider the past with a lingering gaze, 

Like a peacock whose eyes are inclined to his tail. 



250 A PARTHIAN GLANCE. 

Ay, come, let us turn our attention behind, 

Like those critics whose heads are so heavy, I fear, 

That they can not keep up with the march of the mind, 
And so turn face about for reviewing the rear. 

Looking over Time's crupper and over his tail, 
Oh, what ages and pages there are to revise ! 

And as farther our back -searching glances prevail. 
Like the emmets, " how little we are in our eyes !'^ 

What a sweet pretty innocent, half-a-yard long, 

On a dimity lap of true nursery make ! 
I can fancy I hear the old lullaby song 

That was meant to compose me, but kept me awake, 

Methinks I still suffer the infantine throes, 

When my flesh was a cushion for any long pin — 

Whilst they patted my body to comfort my woes, 

Oh ! how little they dreamt they were driving them in ! 

Infant sorrows are strong — infant pleasures as weak — 
But no grief was allowed to indulge in its note ; 

Did you ever attempt a small " bubble and squeak," 
Thro' the Dalby's Carminative down in your throat? 



I 



Did you ever go up to the roof with a bounce ? 

Did you ever come down to the floor with the same ? 
Oh ! I can't but agree with both ends, and pronounce 

'' Head or tails," with a child, an unpleasantish game ! 

Then an urchin — I see myself urchin, indeed, 

With a smooth Sunday face for a mother's delight; 

Why should weeks have an end ? — I am sure there was need 
Of a Sabbath, to follow each Saturday-night. 



A PARTHIAN GLAXCE. 251 

Was your face ever sent to the housemaid to scrub ? 

Have you ever felt huckaback softened with sand? 
Had you ever your nose towelled up to a snub, 

And your eyes knuckled out with the back of the hand ? 

Then a school-boy — my tailor was nothing in fault 
For an urchin will grow to a lad by degrees — 

But how w^ell I remember that " pepper and salt" 
That was down to the elbows, and up to the knees ! 

What a figure it cut when as Nerval I spoke ! 

With a lanky right leg duly planted before ; 
Whilst I told of the chief that w^as killed by my stroke, 

And extended my arms as "the arms that he wore!" 

Next a Lover — Oh ! say, were you ever in love ? 

With a lady too cold — and your bosom too hot ? 
Have you bowed to a shoe-tie, and knelt to a glove? 

Like a bemi that desired to be tied in a knot? 

With the Bride all in w^hite, and your body in blue, 
Did you walk up the aisle — the genteelest of men? 

When I til ink of that beautiful vision anew, 
Oh ! I seem but the biffia of what I was then ! 

I am withered and worn by a premature care, 

And my wrinkles confess the decline of my days ; 

Old Time's busy hand has made free with my hair, 
And I 'm seeking to hide it — by writing for bays \ 



252 ''don't you smell fire?" 



"DON'T YOU SMELL FIRE?" 

Run ! — run for St. Clement's engine ! 

Eor the Pawnbroker's all in a blaze, 
And the pledges are frying and singing — 

Oh ! how the poor pawners will craze ! 
Now where can the turncock be drinking ? 

Was there ever so thirsty an elf? — 
But he still may tope on, for I 'm thinking 

That the plugs are as dry as himself. 

The eno-ines ! — I hear them come rumblins: : 

There 's the Phoenix ! the Globe! and the Sun! 
What a row there will be, and a grumbling, 

When the water don't start for a run ! 
See ! there they come racing and tearing. 

All the street with loud voices is filled ; 
Oh ! it 's only the firemen a-swearing 

At a man they 've run over and killed ! 

How sweetly the sparks fiy away now, 

And twinkle like stars in the sky ; 
It 's a wonder the engines don't play now, 

But I never saw water so shy ! 
Why there is n't enough for a snipe, 

And the fire it is fiercer, alas ! 
Oh ! instead of the New River Pipe, 

They have gone — that they have — to the gas. 

Only look at the poor little P 's 

On the roof — is there any thing sadder ? 

My dears, keep fast hold, if you please, 

And they won't be an hour with the ladder I 



"don't you smell fire?" 258 

But if any one 's hot in their feet, 

And in very great haste to be saved, 
Here 's a nice easy bit in the street, 

That M'Adam has lately unpaved ! 

There is some one — I see a dark shape 

At that window, the hottest of all — 
My good woman, why don't you escape ? 

Never think of your bonnet and shawl : 
If your dress is n't perfect, what is it 

For once in a way to your hurt ? 
When your husband is paying a visit 

There, at Number Fourteen, in his shirt ! 

Only see how she throws out her chaney I 

Her basins, and tea-pots, and all 
The most brittle oi her goods — or any, 

But they all break in breaking their fall : 
Such things are not surely the best 

From a two-story window to throw — 
She might save a good iron-bound chest, 

For there 's plenty of people below ! 

dear ! what a beautiful flash ! 

How it shone thro' the window and door ; 
We shall soon hear a scream and a crash, 

When the woman falls thro' with the floor ! 
There ! there ! what a volley of flame, 

And then suddenly all is obscured ! — 
Well— I 'm glad in my heart that L came ; — 

But I hope the poor man is insured ! 



254 THE WIDOW. 



THE WIDOW. 

One widow at a grave will sob 
A little while, and weep, and sigh I 
If two should meet on such a job, 
They '11 have a gossip by and by. 
If three should come together — why, 
Three widows are good company ! 
If four should meet by any chance, 
Four is a number very nice, 
To have a rubber in a trice — 
But five will up and have a dance I 

Poor Mrs. C (why should I not 

Declare her name ? — her name was Cross) 

Was one of those the " common lot" 

Had left to weep " no common loss :" — 

For she had lately buried then 

A man, the " very best of men," 

A lino-erino; truth, discovered first 

Whenever men " are at the worst." 

To take the measure of her woe, 

It was some dozen inches deep — 

I mean in crape, and hung so low, 

It hid the drops she did not weep ; 

In fact, what human life appears, 

It was a perfect " veil of tears." 

Though ever since she lost ' ' her prop 

And stay" — alas! he wouldn't stay — 

She never had a tear to mop, 

Except one little angry drop, 

From Passion's eye, as Moore would say; 



err 



THE WIDOW. Ibu 

Because, when Mister Cross took flight, 

It looked so very like a spite — 

He died upon a washing-day ! 

Still Widow Cross went twice a week, 

As if " to wet a widow's cheek," 

And soothe his grave with sorrow's gravy — 

'T was nothing but a make-believe, 

She might as well have hoped to grieve 

Enough of brine to float a navy ; 

And yet she .often seemed to raise 

A cambric kerchief to her eye — 

A duster' ought to be the phrase, 

Its work was all so very dry. 

The springs were locked that ought to flow — 

In England or in widow-woman — 

As those that watch the weather know, 

Such "backward Springs" are not uncommon. 

But why did Widow Cross take pains, 

To call. upon the "dear remains" — 

Bemains that could not tell a jot. 

Whether she ever wept or not, 

Or how his relict took her losses ? 

Oh 1 my black ink turns red for shame — 

But still the naughty world must learn, 

There was a little German came 

To shed a tear in " Anna's Urn," 

At the next grave to Mr. Cross's ! 

Eor there an angel's virtues slept, 

" Too soon did Heaven assert its claim 1" 

But still her painted face he kept, 

" Encompassed in an angel's frame." 



256 THE WIDOW. 

He looked quite sad and quite deprived, 
His head was nothing but a hat-band ; 
He looked so lone and so ?<wwived, 
That soon the Widow Cross contrived 
To fall in love with even that band ; 
And all at once the brackish juices 
Came gushing out through sorrow's sluices- 
Tear after tear too fast to wipe, 
Tho' sopped, and sopped, and sopped again- 
No leak in sorrow's private pipe, 
But like a bursting on the main ! 
Whoe'er has watched the window-pane — 
I mean to say in showery weather — 
Has seen two little drops of rain. 
Like lovers very fond and fain, 
At one another creeping, creeping, 
Till both, at last, embrace together : 
So fared it with that couple's weeping, 
The principle was quite as active — 

Tear unto tear 

Kept drawing near, 
Their very blacks became attractive. 
To cut a shortish story shorter, 
Conceive them sitting; tete-a-tete — 
Two cups — hot muffins on a plate — 
With " Anna's Urn" to hold hot water I 
The brazen vessel for a while 
Had lectured in an easy song, 
Like Abernethy — on the bile — 
The scalded herb was getting strong ; 
All seemed as smooth as smooth could be 
To have a cosy cup of tea ; 
Alas ! how often human sippers 



THE WIDOW. 257 

With unexpected bitters meet, 

And buds, the sweetest of the sweet, 

Like sugar, only meet the nippers ! 

The Widow Cross, I should have told, 
Had seen three husbands to the mould ; 
She never sought an Indian pyre. 
Like Hindoo wives that lose their loves. 
But with a proper sense of fire, 
Put up, instead, Avith " three removes :" 
Thus, when with any tender words 
Or tears she spoke about her loss, 
The dear departed, Mr. Cross, 
Came in for nothing but his thirds ; 
For, as all widows love too well, 
She liked upon the list to dwell. 
And oft ripped up the old disasters- 
She might, indeed, have been supposed 
A great ship-ovfuer, for she prosed 
Eternally of her Three Masters ! 
Thus, foolish woman ! while she nursed 
Her mild souchong, she talked and reckoned 
What liad been left her by her first, 
And by her last, and by her second. 
Alas I not all her annual rents 
Could then entice the little German — 
Not Mr. Cross's Three Per Cents, 
Or Consols, ever make him her man ; 
He liked her cash, he liked her houses, 
But not that dismal bit of land 
She always settled on her spouses. 
So taking up his hat and band, 
VOL. n. 17 



258 RHYME AND REASON. 

Said he, " You '11 think my conduct odd — 
But here my hopes no more may linger ; 
I thought you had a wedding-finger, 
But oh ! — it is a curtain-rod !" 



RHYME AND REASON. 



TO THE EDITOR OF THE COMIC ANNUAL : 

Sir. — In one of your Annuals you have given in- 
sertion to " A Plan for Writing Blank Verse in Rhyme ;" 
but as I have seen no regular long poem constructed on its 
principles, I suppose the scheme did not take with the liter- 
ary world. Under these circumstances I feel encouraged to 
bring forward a novelty of my own, and I can only regret 
that such poets as Chaucer and Cottle, Spenser and Hayley, 
Milton and Pratt, Pope and Pye, Byron and Batterbee, 
should have died before it was invented. 

The great difficulty in verse is avowedly the rhyme. 
Dean Swift says somewhere in his letters, " that a rhyme is 
as hard to find with him as a guinea," — and we all know 
that guineas are proverbially scarce among poets. The 
merest versifier that ever attempted a Valentine must have 
met with this Orson, some untameable savage syllable that 
refused to chime in with society. For instance, what poet- 
ical Foxhunter — a contributor to the Sporting Magazine — 
has not drawn all the covers of Beynard, Ceynard, Deynard, 
Feynard, Geynard, Heynard, Keynard, Leynard, Meynard, 
Neynard, Peynard. Queynard, to find a rhyme for Reynard? 
The spirit of the times is decidedly against Tithe ; and I 
know of no tithe more oppressive than that poetical one, in • 
heroic measure, which requires that every tenth syllable I 
shall pay a sound in kind. How often the Poet goes up a 
line, only to be stopped at the end by an impracticable 
rhyme, like a bull in a blind alley ! I have an insrenious I 



THE DOUBLE Kxoc::. 259 

medical friend, who might have been an eminent poet by 
this time, but the first line he wrote ended in ipecacuana, 
and with all his physical and mental power, he has never 
yet been able to find a rhyme for it. 

The plan I propose aims to obviate this hardship. My 
system is, to take the bull by the horns ; in short, to try at 
first what words will chime, before you go further and fare 
worse. To say nothing of other advantages, it will at least 
have one good efiect —and that is, to correct the erroneous 
notion of the would-be poets and poetesses of the present 
day, that the great end of poetry is rhyme. I beg leave to 
present a specimen of verse, which proves quite the reverse, 
and am, Sir, 

Your most obedient servant, 

John Dryden Gkubb. 

THE DOUBLE KNOCK. 

Rat-tat it went upon the lion's chin, 
"That hat, I know it!" cried the joyful girl; 
*' Summer's it is, I know him by his knock, 
Comers like him are w^elcome as the day ! 
Lizzy ! go down and open the street-door, 
Busy I am to any one but him. 
Know him you must — he has been often here; 
Show him up stairs, and tell him I 'm alone." 

Quickly the maid went tripping down the stair ; 
Thickly the heart of Rose Matilda beat ; 
" Sure he has brought me tickets for the play — 
Drury — or Covent Garden — darling man ! — 
Kemble will play — or Kean who makes the soul 
Tremble ; in Richard or the frenzied Moor — 
Farren, the stay and prop of many a farce 
Barren beside — or Listen, Laughter's Child — 



260 THE devil's album. 

Jelly is nothing in the public's jam — 
Cooper, the sensible — and Walter Knowles 
Super, in William Tell — now rightlj told. 
Better — perchance, from Andrews, brings a box, 
Letter of boxes for the Italian stage — 
Brocard ! Donzelli ! Taglioni ! Paul ! 
No card— thank heaven — engages me to-night ! 
Feathers, of course, no turban, and no toque — 
Weather 's against it, but I '11 go in curls. 
Dearly I dote on white — my satin dress, 
Merely one night — it won't be much the worse — 
Cupid — the New Ballet I long to see — 
Stupid ! why don't she go and ope the door I'* 

Glistened her eye as the impatient girl 
Listened, low bending o'er the topmost stair. 
Vainly, alas ! she listens and she bends. 
Plainly she hears this question and reply : 
'^ Axes your pardon. Sir, but what d' ye want ?" 
" Taxes," says he, " and shall not call again !" 



THE DEVIL'S ALBUM. 

It will seem an odd whim 

For a Spirit so grim 
As the Devil to take a delight in ; 

But by common renown 

He has come up to town 
With an Album for people to write in! 

On a handsomer book 
Mortal never did look, 
Of a flame-color silk is the binding, 



EPIGRAM. 261 

With a border superb, 
Where, through floweret and herb, 
The old Serpent goes brilliantly winding I 

By gilded grotesques. 

And embossed arabesques, 
The whole cover, in fact, is pervaded ; 

But, alas ! in a taste 

That betrays they were traced 
At the will of a Spirit degraded 1 

As for paper — the best, 

But extremely hot-pressed. 
Courts the pen to luxuriate upon it; 

And against every blank 

There 's a note on the Bank, 
As a bribe for a sketch or a sonnet. 

Who will care to appear 

In the Fiend's Souvenir, 
Is a question to morals most vital; 

But the very first leaf, 

It 's the public belief. 
Will be filled by a Lady of Title ! 



EPIGRAM 

ON A LATE CATTLE-SHOW IN SMITHFIELD. 

Old Farmer Bull is taken sick. 
Yet not with any sudden trick 

Of fever, or his old dyspepsy ; 
But having seen the foreign stock, 
It gave his system such a shock 

He 's had a fit of cattle-epsy ! 



262 A REPORT FROM BELOW. 



A REPORT FROM BELOW. 

"Blow high, blow low." — Sea Bono. 

As Mister B. and Mistress B. 

One night were sitting clown to tea, 

With toast and muffins hot — 

They heard a loud and sudden bounce, 

That made the very china flounce, 

They could not for a time pronounce 

If they were safe or shot — 

For Memory brought a deed to match 

At Deptford done by night — 

Before one eye appeared a Patch 

In t' other eye a Blight ! 

To be belabored out of life, 
Without some small attempt at strife, 
Our nature will not grovel ; 
One impulse moved both man and dams. 
He seized the tongs — she did the same, 
Leaving the ruffian, if he came. 
The poker and the shovel. 
Suppose the couple standing so, 
When rushing footsteps from below 
Made pulses fast and fervent ; 
And jfirst burst in the frantic cat, 
All steaming like a brewer's rat, 
And then — as white as my cravat — 
Poor Mary May, the servant ! 

Lord, how the couple's teeth did chatter, 

Master and Mistress botli flew at her, 

" Speak ! Fire? or Murder? ^Vhat 's thj matter?" 



A REPORT FROM BELOW. 263 

Till Mary getting breath, 

Upon her tale began to touch 

With rapid tongue, full trotting, such 

As if she thought she had too much 

To tell before her death : — 
" We was both, Ma'am, in the wash-house, Ma'am, a-stand- 

ing at our tubs, 
And Mrs. Round was seconding what little things I rubs ; 
*Marj,' says she to me, ' I say' — and there she stops for 

coughin,' 

* That dratted copper flue has took to smokin' very often, 
But please the pigs,' — for that's her way of swearing in a 

passion, 

* I '11 blow it up, and not be set a coughin' in this fashion !' 
Well, down she takes my master's horn — I mean his horn 

for loading, 
And empties every grain alive for to set the flue exploding. 
Lawk, Mrs. Round ! says I, and stares, that quantum is 

unproper. 
I 'm sartin sure it can't not take a pound to sky a copper ; 
You '11 powder both our heads ofi*, so I tells you, with its 

pufl", 
But she only dried her fingers, and she takes a pinch of 

snuff*. 
Well, when the pinch is over — ' Teach your grandmother 

to suck 
A powder horn,' says she — Well, says I, I wish you luck. 
Them words sets up her back, so with her hands upon her 

hips, 
f Come,' says she, quite in a huff", ' come, keep your tongue 

inside your lips ; 
Afore ever you was born, I was well used to things like 

these ; 



264 A REPORT FROM BELOW. 

I shall put it in the grate, and let it burn up by degrees. 

So in it goes, and Bounce — Lord! it gives us such a 
rattle, 

I thought we both were cannonized, like Sogers in a battle ! 

Up goes the copper like a squib, and us on both our backs, 

And bless the tubs, they bundled off, and split all into cracks. 

Well, there I fainted dead awaj, and might have been cut 
shorter, 

But Providence was kind, and brought me to with scalding 
water. 

I first looks round for Mrs. Round, and sees her at a dis- 
tance, 

As stiff as starch, and looked as dead as any thing in exist- 
ence; 

All scorched and grimed, and more than that, I sees tho 
copper slap 

Right on her head, for all the world like a percussion cop- 
per cap. 

Well, I crooks her little fingers, and crumps them well up 
together, 

As humanity pints out, and burnt her nostrums with a 
feather. 

But for all as I can do, to restore her to her mortality, 

She never gives a sign of a return to ^sensuality. 

Thinks I, well there she lies, as dead fis my own late de- 
parted mother. 

Well, she '11 wash no more in this world_ whatever she does 
in t' other. 

So I gives myself to scramble up the linens for a minute. 

Lawk, sich a shirt ! thinks I, it "s well laj master wasn t 
in it; 

Oh .' I never, never, never, never, never, see a sight so 
shockin' ; 



EPIGRAM. 265 

Here lays a leg, and there a leg — I mean, you know, a 

stocking — 
Bodies all slit and torn to rags, and many a tattered skirt, 
And arms burnt off. and sides and backs all scotched and 

black with dirt ; 
But as nobody was in 'em — none but — nobody was hurt ! 
Well, there I am, a-scrambling up the things, all in a lump, 
When, mercy on us ! such a groan as makes my heart to 

jump. 
And there she is, a-lying with a crazy sort of eye, 
A-staring at the wash-house roof, laid open to the sky : 
Then she beckons with a finger, and so down to her I 

reaches, 
And puts my ear agin her mouth to hear her dying speeches, 
Por, poor soul ! she has a husband and young orphans, as I 

knew ; 
Well, Ma'am, you won't believe it, but it 's Gospel fact and 

true. 
But these words is all she whispered — ' Why, where is the 

powder blew?' " 



EPIGRAM 

ON THE DEPEECIATED MONET. 

They may talk of the plugging and sweatmg 

Of our coinage that 's minted of gold. 
But to me it produces no fretting 

Of its shortness of weight to be told : 
All the sov' reigns I 'm able to levy 

As to lightness can never be wrong, 
But must surely be some of them heavy, 

For I fiever can carry them long. 



266 AN ANCIENT CONCERT. 



AN ANCIENT CONCERT. 

BY A VENERABLE DIRECTOR. 

" Give me old music — let me liear 
The songs of days gone by 1" — H. F. Chobuet. 

! COME, all ye who love to hear 

An ancient song in ancient taste, 
To whom all bygone Music's dear 

As verdant spots in Memory's waste ! 
Its name ''The Ancient Concert" wrongs, 

And has not hit the proper clef, 
To wit, Old Folks to sing Old Songs, 

To Old Subscribers rather deaf. 

Away, then, Hawes ! with all your band 

Ye beardless boys, this room desert \ 
One youthful voice, or youthful hand. 

Our concert-pitch would disconcert ! 
No Bird must join our " vocal throng," 

The present age beheld at font : 
Away, then, all ye " Sons of Song," 

Your Fathers are the men we want ! 

Away, Miss Birch, you 're in your prime! 

Miss Romer, seek some other door ! 
Go, Mrs. Shaw ! till, counting time, 

You count you 're nearly fifty-four ! 
Go, Miss Novello, sadly young ! 

Go, thou composing Chevalier, 
And roam the county towns among. 

No Newcomo will be welcome here ! 



AN ANCIENT CONCERT. 267 

Our Concert aims to give at night 

The music that has had its day ! 
So, Rooke, for us you can not write 

Till time has made you Raven grey. 
Your score may charm a modern ear, 

Nay, ours, when three or fourscore old, 
But in this Ancient atmosphere. 

Fresh airs like yours would give us cold ! 

Go, Hawes, and Cawse, and Woodyat go ! 

Hence, ShirrefF, with those native curls ; 
And Master Coward ought to know 

This is no place for boys and girls ! 
No Massons here we wish to see ; 

Nor is it Mrs. Seguin's sphere. 
And Mrs. B 1 Oh ! Mrs. B , 

Such Bishops are not reverend here ! 

What ! Grisi, bright and beaming thus ! 

To sing the songs gone grey with age ! 
No, Grisi, no — but come to us 

And welcome, when you leave the stage I 
Off, Ivanhoff ! — till weak and harsh ! — 

Rubini, hence ! with all the clan ! 
But come, Lablache, years hence, Lablache 

A little shrivelled thin old man. 

Go, Mr. Phillips, where you please ! 

Away, Tom Cooke, and all your batch ; 
You 'd run us out of breath with Glees, 

And Catches that we could not catch. 
Away, ye Leaders all, who lead 

With violins, quite modern things ; 
To guide our Ancient band we need 

Old fiddles out of ]en(lin<2: strinirs! 



268 AN ANCIENT CONCERT. 

But come, ye Songsters, over-ripe, 

That into " childish trebles break !" 
And bring, Miss Winter, bring the pipe 

That can not sing without a shake ! 
Naj, come, ye Spinsters all, that spin 

A slender thread of ancient voice, 
Old notes that almost seem called in ; 

At such as you we shall rejoice ! 

No thundering Thalbergs here shall baulk, 

Or ride your pet D-cadence o'er. 
But fingers with a little chalk 

Shall, moderato, keep the score ! 
No Broad woods here, so full of tone, 

But Harpsichords assist the strain : 
No Lincoln's pipes, we have our own 

Bird-Organ, built by Tubal-Cain. 

And welcome ! St. Cecilians, now 

Ye willy-nilly, ex-good fellows, 
Who will strike up, no matter how, 

With organs that survive their bellows I 
And bring, bring, your ancient styles 

In which our elders loved to roam, 
Those flourishes that strayed for miles, 

Till some good fiddle led them home ! 

come, ye ancient London Cries, 

When Christmas Carols erst were sung 1 
Come, Nurse, who droned the lullabies, 

" When Music, heavenly Maid, was young P' 
No matter how the critics treat. 

What modern sins and faults detect. 
The Copy- Book shall still repeat. 

These Concerts must ' Command respect !" 



THE DROWNING DUCKS. 269 



THE DROWNING DUCKS. 

Amongst the sights that Mrs. Bond 

Enjoyed jet grieved at more than others, 

Were little ducklings in a pond, 

Swimming about beside their mothers — 

Small things like living water lilieSj 

But yellow as the daffo-c?i//ie5. 

"It's very hard," she used to moan, 
"That other people have their ducklings 

To grace their waters — mine alone 
Have never any pretty chucklings." 

Por why ! — each little yellow navy 

Went down — all dow ny - to old Davy 1 

She had a lake — -a pond I mean — 

Its wave was rather thick than pearly — 

She had two ducks, their napes were green- 
She had a drake, his tail was curly — 

Yet spite of drake, and ducks, and pond, 

No little ducks had Mrs. Bond ! 

The birds were both the best of mothers — ■ 

" The nests had eggs — the eggs had luck — 
The infant D.'s came forth like others — 

But there, alas ! the matter stuck ! 
They might as well have all died addle 
As die when they began to paddle 1 

For when, as native instinct taught her, 
The mother set her brood afloat, 



270 THE DROWNING" DUCKS. 

Thej sank ere long right under water, 

"Like any over-loaded boat; 
Thej were web-footed too to see, 
As ducks and spiders ought to be ! 

No peccant humor in a gander 

Brought havoc on her little folks — 

No poaching cooks — a frying pander 
To appetite — destroyed their yolks — 

Beneath her very eyes, Od' rot 'em ! 

They went, like plummets, to the bottom, 

The thing was strange — a contradiction 
It seemed of nature and her works ! 

Tor little ducks, beyond conviction, 
Should float without the help of corks : 

Great Johnson it bewildered him ! 

To hear of ducks that could not swim. 

Poor Mrs. Bond ! what could she do 

But change the breed — and she tried divers 

Which dived as all seemed born to do ; 
No little ones were e'er survivors — 

Like those that copy gems, I'm thinking. 

They all were given to die-sinking ! 

In vain their downy coats were shorn ; 

They floundered still ! — Batch after batch went I 
The little fools seemed only born 

And hatched for nothing but a hatchment I 
Whene'er they launched — sight of wonder! 
Like fires the water " got them under!" 

No woman ever gave their lucks 

A better chance than Mrs. Bond did ; 



I 



THE DROWNING DUCKS. 271 

At last quite out of heart and ducks, 

She gave her pond up, and desponded; 
For Death among the water-lilies, 
Cried " Due ad me" to all her dillies! 

But though resolved to breed no more^ 

She brooded often on this riddle — 
Alas! 'twas darker than before! 

At last about the summer's middle, 
What Johnson, Mrs. Bond, or none did, 

To clear the matter up the Sun did ! 

The thirsty Sirius, dog-like drank 

So deep, his furious tongue to cool, 
The shallow waters sanlc and sank, 

And lo, from out the wasted pool. 
Too hot to hold them any longer. 
There crawded some eels as big as conger! 

I wish all folks would look a bit. 

In such a case below the surface ; 
But when the eels were caught and split 

By Mrs. Bond, just think of her face, 
In each inside at once to spy 
A duckling turned to giblet-pie ! 

The sight at once explained the case. 

Making the Dame look rather silly, 
The tenants of that Eely Place 

Had found the way to Pick a dilly^ 
And so by under-water suction, 
Had wrought the little ducks' abduction. 



272 THE FALL. 



THE FALL. 

"Down, down, down, ten thousand fathoms deep." — Coxtnt Fathom. 

V/ho does not know that dreadful gulf, where Niagara 

falls, 
Where eagle unto eagle screams, to vulture vulture calls ; 
Where down beneath, Despair and Death in liquid darkness 

grope, 
And upward, on the foam there shines a rainbow without 

Hope ; 
While, hung with clouds of Fear and Doubt, the unreturning 

wave 
Suddenly gives an awful plunge, like life into the grave ; 
And many a hapless mortal there hath dived to bale or 

bliss ; 
One — only one — hath ever lived to rise from that abyss ! 
Oh, Heav'n ! it turns me now to ice with chill of fear 

extreme. 
To think of my frail bark adrift on that tumultuous stream ! 
In vain with desperate sinews, strung by love of life and 

and light, 
I urged that coffin, my canoe, against the current's might : 
On — on — still on — direct for doom, the river rushed in force, 
Ajid fearfully the stream of Time raced with it in its 

course. 
My eyes I closed — I dared not look the way towards the 

goal ; 
But still I viewed the horrid close, and dreamt it in my 

soul. 
Plainly, as through transparent lids, I saw the fleeting 

shore. 
And lofty trees, like winged things, flit by for evermore ; 



THE FALL. 273 

Plainly— but with no prophet sense — I heard the sullen 

sound, 
The torrent's voice — and felt the mist, like death-sweat 

gathering round. 

agony ! life ! My home ! and those that made it sweet: 
Ere I could pray, the torrent lay beneath my very feet. 
With frightful whiid, more swift than thought, I passed the 

dizzy edge, 
Bound after bound, with hideous bruise, I dashed from ledge 

to ledge, 
From crag to crag — in speechless pain — from midnight deep 

to deep ; 

1 did not die — ^but anguish stunned my senses into sleep. 
How long entranced, or whither dived, no clue I have to 

find : 
At last the gradual light of life came dawning o'er my 

mind; 
And through my brain there thrilled a cry — a cry as shrill 

as birds' 
Of vulture or of eagle kind, but this was set to words : — 
"It's Edgar Huntley in his cap and night-gown, I declares I 
He 's been a walking in his sleep, and pitched all down th^ 

stairs !" 

VOL. II. 18 



THE STEAM SERYICE 

" Life is but a kittle cast." — Btjkns. 

The time is not yet come — but come it will — when the 
masts of our Royal Navy shall be unshipped, and huge 
unsightly chimneys be erected in their place. The trident 
will be taken out of the hand of Neptune, and replaced by 
the effigy of a red-hot poker ; the Union Jack will tlook 
like a smoke-jack ; and Lambtons, Russels, and Adairs will 
be made Admirals of the Black ; the forecastle will be 
called the Newcastle, and the cock-pit will be termed the 
coal-pit ; a man-of-war's tender will be nothing but a 
Shields' collier ; first-lieutenants will have to attend lec- 
tures on the steam-engine, and mid-shipmen must take 
lessons as climbing-boys in the art of sweeping flues. In 
short, the good old tune of " Rule Britannia" will give 
way to " Polly put the Kettle on;" while the Victory, the 
Majestic, and the Thunderer of Great Britain will "paddle 
in the burn," like the Harlequin, the Dart, and the Mag- 
net of Margate. 

It will be well for our song-writers to bear a wary eye to 
the Fleet, if they would prosper as Marine Poets. Some 
sea Gurney may get a seat at the Admiralty Board, and 
then farewell, a long farewell, to the old ocean imagery : 
marine metaphor will require a new figure-head. Flowing 



THE STEAM SERVICE. 275 

sheets, snowj wings, and the old comparison of a ship to a 
bird, will become obsolete and out of date ! Poetical top- 
sails will be taken aback, and all such things as reefs and 
double-reefs will be shaken out of song. For my own part, 
I cannot be sufficiently thankful that I have not sought a 
Helicon of salt water ; or canvassed the Nine Muses as a 
writer for their Marine Library ; or made Pegasus a sea- 
horse, when sea-horses as well as land-horses are equally 
likely to be superseded by steam. After such a consumma- 
tion, when the sea service, like the tea service, will depend 
chiefly on boiling water, it is very doubtful Avhcther the 
Fleet will be worthy of any thing but plain prose. I have 
tried to adapt some of our popular blue ballads to the 
boiler, and Dibdin certainly does not steam quite so well as 
a potatoe. However, if his Sea Songs are to be in immor- 
tal use, they will have to be revised and corrected in future 
editions thus : — 

I steamed from the Downs in the Nancy, 
My jib how she smoked through the breeze. 

She 's a vessel as tight to my fancy 
As ever boiled through the salt seas. 

^ ^ ^ ^ * 

When up i\\Q Jitie the sailor goes 

And ventures on the jjot^ 
The landsman, he no better knows, 

But thinks hard is his lot. 

Bold Jack with smiles each danger meets, 

Weighs anchor, lio;hts the los ; 
Trmis lip the fire, picks out the slates, 

And drinks his can of grog. 

^ AL. AL^ 4^ J^ 

TT TV T^ TV TT 



276 THE STEAM SERVICE. 

Go patter to lubbers and swabs do you see, 

'Bout danger, and fear, and the like ; 
But a Boidton and Watt and good WalV s-end give me ; 

And it ain't to a little I '11 strike. 

Though the tempest our chimney smack smooth shall down 
smite, 

And shiver each bundle of wood ; 
Clear the wreck, stir the fire ^ and stow every thing tight, 

And boilinfj a gallop we '11 scud. 

I have cooked Stevens's, or rather Incledon's Storm in 
the same way ; but the pathos does not seem any the ten- 
derer for stewing. 

Hark, the boatswain hoarsely bawling, 

By shovel, tongs, and poker, stand ; 
Down the scuttle quick be hauling, 

Down your bellows, hand, boys, hand. 
Now it freshens — blow like blazes ; 

Now unto the coal-hole go ; 
Stir, boys, stir, don't mind black faces, 

Up your ashes nimbly throw. 

Ply your bellows, raise the wind, boys. 

See the valve is clear, of course ; 
Let the paddles spin, don't mind, boys, 

Though the weather should be worse. 
Fore and aft a proper draft get. 

Oil the engines.^ see all clear ; 
Hands up, each a sack of coal get, 

Man the boiler, cheer, lads, cheer. 

Now the dreadful thunder 's roaring, 

Peal on peal contending clash j ■ 



THE STEAM SERVICE. 277 

On our heads fierce rain falls pouring, 

In our eyes the paddles splash. 
One wide water all around us, 

All above one smoke-black sky : 
Different deaths at once surround us ; 

Hark ! what means that dreadful cry ? 

The funnel 's gone ! cries ev'ry tongue out, 

The engineer 's washed off the deck ; 
A leak beneath the coal-hole 's sprung out, 

Call all hands to clear the wreck. 
Quick, some coal, some nubbly pieces ; 

Come, my hearts, be stout and bold ; 
Plumb the boiler, speed decreases. 

Four feet water getting cold. 

While o'er the ship wild waves are beating, 

We for wives or children mourn ; 
Alas ! from hence there 's no retreating ; 

Alas ! to them there 's no return. 
The fire is out — we 've burst the bellows, 

The tinder-box is swamped below ; 
Heaven have mercy on poor fellows, 

For only that can serve us now ! 

Devoutly do I hope that the kettle, though a great voca- 
list, will never thus appropriate the old Sea Songs of Eng- 
land. In the words of an old Greenwich pensioner — 
' ' Steaming and biling does very well for Urii Bay, and the 
likes ;" but the craft does not look regular and shipshape to 
the eye of a tar who has sailed with Duncan, Howe, and 
Jarvis — and who would rather even go without port than 
have it through ^funnel. 



?.'I8 A LAY OF REAL LIFE. 



A LAY OF REAL LIFE. 

"Some are born "vith a wooden spoon in their mouths, and some with a golden 
kdle." — Goldsmith. 
" Some are born with tin rings in their noses, and some with silver ones." — Su.vbr- 

luiTH. 

Who ruined me ere I was born, 
Sold every acre, grass or corn, 
And left the next heir all forlorn ? 

Mj Grandfather. 

Who said my mother was no nurse, 
And physicked me and made me worse, 
Till infancy became a curse ? 

My Grandmother. 

Who left me in my seventh year, 
A comfort to my mother dear, 
And Mr. Pope, the overseer ? 

My Father. 

Who let me starve to buy her gin. 

Till all my bones came through my skin. 

Then called me " ugly little sin ?" 

My Mother. 

Who said my mother was a Turk 
And took me home — and made me work. 
But managed half my meals to shirk ? 

My Aunt. 

Who "of all earthly things" would boast, 
*' He hated others' brats the most," 
And therefore made me feel my post ? 

My Uncle. 



A LAY OF REAL LIFE. 279 

Who got in scrapes, an endless score, 
And always laid them at mj door, 
Till many a bitter bang I bore ? 

My Cousin. 

Who took me home when mother died, 
Again with father to reside, 
Black shoes, clean knives, run far and wide ? 

My Stepmother. 

Who marred my stealthy urchin joys. 

And when I played cried " What a noise !" — ' 

Girls always hector over boys — 

My Sister. 

Who used to share in what was mine, 
Or took it all, did he incline, 
'Cause I was eight, and he was nine? 

My Brother. 

Who stroked my head, and said '' Good lad," 
And gave me sixpence, " all he had;" 
But at the stall the coin was bad ? 

My Godfather. 

Who, gratis, shared my social glass. 
But when misfortune came to pass 
Referred me to the pump ? Alas ! 

My Friend. 

Through all this weary world, in brief, 
Who ever sympathized with grief, 
Or shared my joy— my sole relief? 

Myself. 



280 THE angler's farewell. 

THE ANGLER'S FAREWELL. 

"Eesigned, I kissed the rod." 

Well ! I think it is time to put up ! 
For it does not accord with my notions, 

Wrist, elbow, and chine, 

Stiff from throwing the Ime, 
To take nothing at last by my motions ! 

I ground-bait my way as I go, 
And dip at each watery dimple ; 

But however I wish 

To inveigle the fish. 
To my gentle they will not play simple ! 

Though my float goes so swimmingly on, 
My bad luck never seems to diminish ; 

It would seem that the Bream 

Must be scarce in the stream, 
And the Chiib^ tho' it's chubby, be thinnish! 

Not a Trout there can be in the place. 
Not a Grayling or Rud worth the mention, 

And although at my hook 

With attention I look, 
I can ne'er see my hook with a Tench on ! 

At a brandling once Gudgeon would gape, 
But they seem upon different terms now ; 

Have they taken advice 

Of the " Council of Nice;' 
And rejected their ^^ Diet of Worms/' now? 



THE angler's farewell. 281 

In vain mj live minnow I spin, 

Not a Pike seems to think it worth snatching ; 

For the gut I have brought, 

I had better have bought 
A good rope that was used to Jack-ketching ! 

Not a nibble has ruffled my cork. 
It is vain in this river to search then ; 

I may wait till it 's night, 

Without any bite. 
And at roost-time have never a Perch then ! 

No Roach can I meet with — no Bleak, 
Save what in the air is so sharp now j 

Not a Dace have I got. 

And I fear it is not 
^' Carpe diem," a day for the Carp now ! 

Oh ! there is not a one pound prize 
To be got in this fresh- water lottery ! 

What then can I deem 

Of so fishless a stream 
But that 'tis— like St. Mary's — Ottery ! 

For an Eel I have learned how to try, 
By a method of Walton's own showing — 

But a fisherman feels 

Little prospect of Eels, 
In a path that 's devoted to towing ! 

I have tried all the water for miles, 
Till I 'm weary of dipping and casting 

And hungry and fxint — 

Let the Fancy just paint 
What it is, ivithout Fish, to be Fasting f 



282 SEA SONG. 

And the rain drizzles down very fast, 

While m J dinner-time sounds from a far-bell — 

So, wet to the skin, 

I '11 e'en back to my Inn, 
Where at least I am sure of a Bar-bell! 



SEA SONG. 

AFTER DIBDIN. 

Pure water it plays a good part in 

The swabbing the decks and all that — 
And it finds its own level for sartin — 

For it sartinly drinks very flat : — 
For my part a drop of the creatur 

I never could think was a fault. 
For if Tars should swig water by natur, 

The sea would have never been salt !- 
Then off with it into a jorum 

And make it strong, sharpish, or sweet, 
For if I 've any sense of decorum 

It never was meant to be neat ! — 

One day when I was but half sober — 

Half measures I always disdain — 
I walked into a shop that sold Soda, 

And ax'd for some Water Champagne : — 
Well, the lubber he drew and he drew, boys. 

Till I 'd shipped my six bottles or more, 
And blow off my last limb but it 's true, boys, 

Why, I warn't half so drunk as afore ! — 
Then off with it into a jorum, 

And make it strong, sharpish, or sweet, 
For if I 've any sense of decorum, 

It never was meant to be neat. 



THE APPARITION. 283 



THE APPARITION. 

In the dead of the night, when from beds that are turfy, 

The spirits rise up on old cronies to call, 
Came a shade from the Shades on a visit to Murphy, 

Who had not foreseen such a visit at all. 

'' Don't shiver and shake," said the mild Apparition, 
" I 'm come to your bed with no evil design ; 

I 'm the Spirit of Moore, Francis Moore the Physician, 
Once great like yourself in the Almanack line. 

" Like you I was once a great prophet on weather. 
And deemed to possess a more prescient knack 

Than dogs, frogs, pigs, cattle, or cats, all together. 
The donkeys that bray, and the dillies that quack. 

'' With joy, then, as ashes retain former passion, 
I saw my old mantle lugged out from the shelf, 

Turned, trimmed, and brushed up, and again brought in 
fashion, 
I seemed to be almost reviving myself ! 

" But, oh ! from my joys there was soon a sad cantle — 
As too many cooks make a mull of the broth — 

To find that two Prophets were under my mantle. 
And pulling two ways at the risk of the cloth. 

^' Unless you would meet with an awkwardish tumble, 
Oh ! join like the Siamese twins in your jumps ; 

Just fancy if Faith on her Prophets should stumble, 
The one in his clogs, and the other in pumps ! 



284 LITTLE O'P. — AN AFRICAN FACT. 

*' But think how the people would worship and wonder, 
To find you ' hail fellows, well met, ' in jour hail, 

In one tune with your rain, and your wind, and your thunder, 
' Tore God,' they would cry, ' they are both in a tale' I" 



LITTLE O'P.— AN AFRICAN FACT. 

It was July the First, and the great hill of Howth 

Was bearing by compass sow-west and by south, 

And the name of the ship was the Peggy of Cork, 

Well freighted with bacon and butter and pork. 

Now, this ship had a captain, Macmorris by name. 

And little 0' Patrick was mate of the same; 

For Bristol they sailed, but by nautical scope. 

They contrived to be lost by the Cape of Good Hope. 

Of all the Cork boys that the vessel could boast. 

Only little O'P. made a swim to the coast ; 

And when he revived from a sort of a trance. 

He saw a big Black with a very long lance. 

Says the savage, says he, in some Hottentot tongue 

" Bash Kuku my gimmel bo gomborry bung !" 

Then blew a long shell, to the fright of our elf, 

And down came a hundred as black as himself 

They brought with them guattul^ and pieces of klam^ 

The first was like beef, and the second like lamb ; 

" Don't I know," said O'P., '' what the wretches are at? 

" They 're intending to eat me as soon as I 'm fat !" 

In terror of coming to pan, spit, or pot, 

His rations of jar bid Le suffered to rot ; 

He would not touch purry or dooiberry-lik^ 

But kept \\ims>Q\i growing a? thin as a stick. 



LITTLE O'P. — AN AFRICAN FACT. 285 

Though broiling the climate, and parching with drouth, 

He would not let chobbery enter his mouth, 

But kicked down the hug shell, tho' sweetened with natt- 

'^ I an't to be pisoned the likes of a rat !" 

At last the great Joddry got quite in a rage, 

And cried, " mi pitticum damballj nage ! 

The chobbery take, and put back on the shelf, 

Or give me the krug shell, I '11 drink it myself! 

The doolberry-lik is the best to be had. 

And the jnirry (I chewed it myself) is not bad ; 

^\iQJarbul is fresh, for I saw it cut out, 

And the Bok that it came from is grazing about. 

Mj jumbo! but run off to Billery Nang, 

And tell her to put on her jigger and ta?ig, 

And go with the Bloss to the man of the sea. 

And say that she comes as his Wuhvul from me." 

Now Billery Nang was as Black as a sweep. 

With thick curly hair like the wool of a sheep, 

And the moment he spied her, said little O'P., 

^' Sure the Divil is dead, and his Widow 's at me !" 

But when, in the blaze of her Hottentot charms. 

She came to accept him for life in her arms. 

And stretched her thick lips to a broad grin of love, 

A Raven preparing to bill like a Dove, 

With a soul full of dread he declined the grim bliss, 

Stopped her Molyneux arms, and eluded her kiss ; 

At last fairly foiled, she gave up the attack. 

And Jeddry began to look blacker than black ; 

" By Mumbo ! by Jumbo ! — why here is a man. 

That won't be made happy do all that I can ; 

He will not be married, lodged, clad, and well fed. 

Let the Rhami take his shangwang and chop off his head !" 



286 CONVEYANCING. 



CONVEYANCING. 

0, London is the place for all 

In love with loco-motion ! 
Still to and fro the people go 

Like billows of the ocean ; 
Machine or man, or caravan, 

Can all be had for paying, 
When great estates, or heavy weights, 

Or bodies v/ant conveying. 

There 's always hacks about in packs, 

Wherein you may be shaken, 
And Jarvis is not always drunk^ 

Tho' always overtaken ; 
In racing tricks he '11 never mix. 

His nags are in their last days. 
And sloiu to go, altho' they show 

As if they had their fast days ! 

Then if you like a single horse. 

This age is quite a cab-age^ 
A car not quite so small and light 

As those of our Queen Mab age ; 
The horses have been broken well, 

All danger is rescinded. 
For some have broken both their knees 

And some are broken ivinded. 

If you 've a friend at Chelsea end, 
The stages are worth knowing — 

There is a sort, we call 'em short, 
Although the longest going — 



CONVEYANCING. 28T 

For some will stop at Hatchett's shop, 

Till jou grow faint and sickj, 
Perched up behind, at last to find, 

Your dinner is all dickey ! 

Long stages run from ever j yard ; 

But if you 're wise and frugal, 
You '11 never go with any Guard 

That plays upon the bugle, 
*' Ye banks and braes," and other lays 

And ditties everlasting, 
Like miners going all your way, 

With boring and with blasting. 

Instead oi journeys, people now 

May go upon a Gurney, 
With steam to do the horses' work, 

By poivers of attorney ; 
Tho' with a load it may explode, 

And you may all be ^^/^-done ! 
And find you 're going up to Heaven^ 

Instead of up to Lo7idon ! 

To speak of every kind of coach 

It is not my intention ; 
But there is still one vehicle 

Deserves a little mention ; 
The world a sage has called a stage. 

With all its living lumber. 
And Malthus swears it always bears 

Above the proper number. 

The law will transfer house or land 
For ever and a day hence, 



288 THE BURNING OF THE LOVE LETTER. 

For lighter things, watch, brooches, rings, 
You '11 never want conveyance ; 

Ho ! stop the thief ! my handkerchief ! 
It is no sight for laughter — 

Away it goes, and leaves my nose 
To join in running after ! 



THE BURNING OF THE LOVE LETTER. 

" Sometimes they were put to the proof, by what was called the Fiery Ordeal."- 
H18TOBT OF England. 

No morning ever seemed so long ! — 
I tried to read with all my might ! 

In my left hand " My Landlord's Tales," 
And threepence ready in my right. 

'Twas twelve at last — my heart beat high ! — 
The Postman rattled at the door ! — 

And just upon her road to church, 

I dropt the '' Bride of Lammermoor!" 

I seized the note — I flew up stairs — 
Flung-to the door, and locked me in — 

With panting haste I tore the seal — 
And kissed the B in Benjamin ! 

'T was full of love — to rhyme with dove — 
And all that tender sort of thing — 

Of sweet and meet — and heart and dart — 
But not a word about a ring ! — 

In doubt I cast it in the flame. 

And stood to watch the latest spark — 

And saw the love all end in smoke — 
Without a Parson and a Clerk ! 



POEM FROM THE POLISH. 289 



POEM— FROM THE POLISH. 

Some months since a young lady was much surprised at receiving from the Captain 
of a Whaler, a blank sheet of paper, folded in the form of a letter, and duly sealed. 
At last, recollecting the nature of the sympathetic ink, she placed the missive on a 
toasting-fork, and after holding it to the fii-e for a minute or two succeeded in thawing 
out the following verses : 

From seventy-two North latitude, 

Dear Kitty, I indite ; 
But first I 'd have you understand 

How hard it is to write. 

Of thoughts that breathe and words that burn, 

My Kitty, do not think — 
Before I wrote these very lines, 

I had to melt my ink. 

Of mutual flames and lover's Warmth, 

You must not be too nice ; 
The sheet that I am writing on 

Was once a sheet of ice ! 

The Polar cold is sharp enough 

To freeze with icy gloss 
The genial current of the soul, 

E'en in a " Man of Koss." 

Pope says that letters waft a sigh 

Prom Indus to the Pole ; 
But here I really wish the post 

Would only "post the coaV 

So chilly is the Northern blast, 

It blows me through and through • 
A ton of Wallaend in a note 

Would be a billet-doux ! 

v^oL. n. 19 



290 POEM — FROM THE POLISH. 

In such a frigid latitude 

It scarce can be a sin, 
Should Passion cool a little, where 

A Fury was iced in. 

I 'm rather tired of endless snow, 
And long for coals again; 

And would give up a Sea of Ice, 
For some of Lambton's Main. 

I 'm sick of dazzling ice and snow, 

The sun itself I hate ; 
So very bright, so very cold, 

Just like a summer grate. 

For opodeldoc I would kneel, 
My chil])lains to anoint ; 

Kate, the needle of the north 
Has got a freezing point. 

Our food is solids — ere we put 

Our meat into our crops, 
We take sledge-hammers to our steaks 

And hatchets to our chops. 

So very bitter is the blast, 
So cutting is the air, 

1 never have been warm but once, 

When hugging with a bear. 

One thing I know you '11 like to hear, 
Th' effect of Polar snows, 

I've left off snuff— one pinching day— 
From leaving off my nose. 



POEM — FROM THE POLISH. 291 

I have no ear for music now ; 

Mj ears both left together ; 
And as for dancing, I have cut 

Mj toes — it 's cutting weather. 

I 've said that jou should have my hand, 

Some happy day to come ; 
But, Kate, you only now can wed 

A finger and a thumb. 

Don't fear that any Esquimaux 

Can wean me from my own ; 
The Girdle of the Queen of Love 

Is not the Frozen. Zone. 

At wives with large estates of snow 

My fancy does not bite ; 
I like to see a Bride — but not 

In such a deal of white. 

Give me for home a house of brick, 

The Kate I love at Kew ! 
A hand unchopped — a merry eye, 

And not a nose, of blue ! 

To think upon the Bridge of Kew, 

To me a bridge of sighs ; 
Oh, Kate, a pair of icicles 

Are standing in my eyes ! 

God knows if I shall e'er return, 

In comfort to be lulled ; 
But if I do get back to port, 

Pray let me have it mulled. 



292 FRENCH AND ENGLISH. 



FRENCH AND ENGLISH. 

**Goo(i heaven 1 "Why even the little children in France speak French!" 

Addison. 

Never go to France 

Unless you know the lingo, 
If jou do, like me, 

You will repent by jingo. 
Staring like a fool, 

And silent as a mummy, 
There I stood alone, 

A nation with a dummy : 

Chaises stand for chairs. 

They christen letters Billies^ 
They call their mothers mares^ 

And all their daughters fillies ; 
Strange it was to hear, 

I '11 tell you what 's a good 'un, 
They call their leather queer ^ 

And half their shoes are wooden. 

Signs I had to make. 

For every little notion, 
Limbs all going like 

A telegraph in motion, 
For wine I reeled about, 

To show my meaning fully 
And made a pair of horns, 

To ask for " beef and bully." 

Moo ! I cried for milk ; 

I got my sweet things snugger. 



FRENCH AND ENGLISH. 293 

When I kissed Jeannette, 

'T was understood for sugar. 
If I wanted bread, 

My jaws I set a-going, 
And asked for new-laid eggs, 

By clapping hands and crowing! 

If I wished a ride, 

I '11 tell you how I got it; 
On my stick astride, 

I made believe to trot it ; 
Then their cash was strange, 

It bored me every minute, 
Now here 's a hog to change. 

How many sows are in it I 

Never go to France, 

Unless you know the lingo; 
If you do, like me. 

You will repent, by jingo; 
Staring like a fool. 

And silent as a mummy, 
There I stood alone, 

A nation with a dummy I 



OUR VILLAGE. 

"Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain." — Goldsmith. 

I HAVE a great anxiety to become a topographer, and I 
do not know that I can make an easier commencement of 
the character, than by attempting a description of our vil- 
lage. It will be found, as my friend the landlord over the 
way says, that " things are drawn mild.^^ 

I live opposite the Green Man. I know that to be the 
sign, in spite of the picture, because I am told of the fact 
in large gilt letters, in three several places. The whole- 
length portrait of " Vhomme verd''' is rather imposing. He 
stands plump before you, in a sort of wrestling attitude, the 
legs standing distinctly apart, in a brace of decided boots, 
with dun tops, joined to a pair of creole-colored leather 
breeches. The rest of his dress is peculiar ; the coat, a 
two-flapper, green and brown, or, as they say at the tap, 
half-and-half ; a cocked hat on the half cock ; a short belt 
crossing the breast like a flat gas-pipe. The one hand stuck 
on the greeny -brown hip of my friend, in the other a gun 
with a barrel like an entire butt, and the butt like a brewer's 
whole stock. On one side, looking up at the vanished vision 
of his master, is all that remains of a liver-and-white 
pointer — seeming now to be some old dog from India, for 
his white complexion is turned yellow, and his liver is 
more than half gone ! 



OUR VILLAGE. 295 

The inn is reallj a very quiet, cozy, comfortable inn, 
though the handlord announces a fact in larger letters, me- 
tliinks, tiian his information warrants, viz., that he is '^'^ Li- 
censed to deal in Foreign Wines and Spirits.^ ^ All inn- 
keepers, I trust, are so licensed; there is no occasion to 
make so brazen a brag of this sinecure permit. 

•^ -ikk -^ -iifc -^ -At 

'TV TV* TV TV -TT -ff- 

I had written thus far, when the tarnished gold letters 
of the Green Man seemed to be suddenly re-gilt ; and on 
looking upwards, I perceived that a sort of sky-light had 
been opened in the clouds, giving entrance to a bright gleam 
of sunshine, which glowed with remarkable effect on a yel- 
low post-chaise in the stable-yard, and brought the ducks 
out beautifully white from the black horse-pond. Tempted 
by the appearance of the weather, I put down my pen, and 
strolled out for a quarter of an hour before dinner to inhale 
that air, without which, like the chameleon, I cannot feed. 
On my return, I found, with some surprise, that my papers 
were a good deal discomposed ; but, before I had time for 
much wonder, my landlady entered with one of her most 
obliging curtesys, and observed that she had seen me writ- 
ing in the morning, and it had occurred to her by chance, 
that I might by possibility have been writing a description 
of the village. I told her that I had actually been engaged 
on that very subject. "If that is the case, of course, sir, 
you would begin, no doubt, about the Green Man, being so 
close by ; and I dare say, you would say something about 
the sign, and the Green Man with his top boots, and his gun, 
and his Indian liver-and-white pointer, though his white to 
be sure is turned yellow, and his liver is more than half 
gone." " You are perfectly right, Mrs. Ledger," I re- 
plied, ' ' and in one part of the description, I think I have 
used almost your own very words." '' Well that is curious, 



296 OUR VILLAGE. 

sir," exclaimed Mrs. L., and physically, not arithmetically, 
casting up all her hands and eyes. "Moreover, what I 
mean to say, is this ; and I only say that to save trouble. 
There 's a young man lodges at the Green Grocer's over the 
way, who has writ an account of the village already to your 
hand. The people about the place call him the Poet, but, 
anyhow, he studies a good deal, and writes beautiful ; and, 
as I said before, has made the whole village out of his own 
head. Now, it might save trouble, sir, if you was to write 
it out, and I am sure I have a copy, that, as far as the loan 
goes, is at your service, sir." My curiosity induced me to 
take the offer ; and as the poem really forestalled what I 
had to say of the Hamlet, I took my landlady's advice and 
transcribed it — and here it is : 

OUR VILLAGE.— BY A VILLAGER. 

OuB. village, that 's to say not Miss Mitford's village, but 

our village of Bullock Smithy, 
Is come into by an avenue of trees, three oak pollards, two 

elders, and a withy ; 
And in the middle, there 's a green of about not exceeding 

an acre and a half; 
It's common to all, and fed off by nineteen cows, six ponies, 

three horses, five asses, two foals, seven pigs, and a calf! 
Besides a pond in the.middle, as is held by a similar sort of 

common law lease. 
And contains twenty ducks, six drakes, three ganders, twe 

dead dogs, four drowned kittens, and twelve geese. 
Of course the green's cropt very close, and does famous for 

bowling when the little village-boys play at cricket ; 
Only some horse, or pig, or cow, or great jackass, is sure 

to come and stand right before the wicket. 



OUR VILLAGE. 297 

There's fifty-five private houses^ let alone barns and workshops, 

and pig-stjes, and poultrj-hutSj and such like sheds ; 
With plenty of public houses — two Foxes, one Green Man, 

three Bunch of Grapes, one Crown, and six King's Heads. 
The Green Man is reckoned the best, as the only one that 

for love or money can raise 
A postilion, a blue jacket, two deplorable lame white horses, 

and a ramshackled " neat post-chaise." 
There 's one parish-church for all the people, whatsoever 

may be their ranks in life or their degrees. 
Except one very damp, small, dark, freezing-cold, little 

Methodist chapel of Ease ; 
And close by the church-yard, there's a stone-mason's yard, 

that when the time is seasonable 
Will furnish with afflictions sore and marble urns and 

cherubims very low and reasonable. 
There 's a cage, comfortable enough ; I 've been in it with 

Old Jack Jeffrey and Tom Pike ; 
For the Green Man next door will send you in ale, gin, or 

any thing else you like. 
I can't speak of the stocks, as nothing remains of them but 

the upright post ; 
But the pound is kept in repairs for the sake of Cob's horse, 

as is always there almost. 
There 's a smithy of course, where that queer sort of a chap 

in his way. Old Joe Bradley, 
Perpetually hammers and stammers, for he stutters and 

shoes horses very badly. 
There 's a shop of all sorts, that sells every thing, kept by 

the widow of Mr. Task ; 
But when you go there, it 's ten to one she 's out of every 

thing you ask. 



298 OUR VILLAGE. 

You '11 know her house bj the swarm of bojs, like flies, 

about the old sugary cask : 
There are six empty houses, and not so well papered inside 

as out, 
For bill-stickers won't beware, but sticks notices of sales 

and election placards all about. 
That's the Doctor's with a green door, where the garden 

pots in the windows is seen ; 
A weakly monthly rose that don't blow, and a dead geranium, 

and a tea-plant with five black leaves and one green. 
As for hollyhocks at the cottage-doors, and honeysuckles 

and jasmines, you may go and whistle ; 
But the tailor's front garden grow two cabbages, a dock, a 

ha'porth of pennyroyal, two dandelions, and a thistle. 
There are three small orchards — Mr. Busby's the school- 
master's is the chief — 
With two pear-trees that don't bear ; one plum and an apple, 

that every year is stripped by a thief. 
There's another small day-school too, kept by the respectable 

Mrs. Gaby ; 
A select establishment, for six little boys and one 6ig, and 

four little girls and a baby. 
There 's a rectory, with pointed gables and strange odd 

chimneys that never smokes, 
For the rector don't live on his living like other Christian 

sort of folks ; 
There 's a barber's, once a- week well filled with rough 

black -bearded, shock-headed churls, , 

And a window with two feminine men's heads, and two 

masculine ladies in false curls ; 
There 's a butcher's, and a carpenter's, and a plumber's, and 

a small green-grocer's, and a baker, 



A VALENTINE. 299 

But he won't bake on a Sunday, and there 's a sexton that 's 

a coal-mercha.nt besides, and an undertaker ; 
And a toy-shop, but not a Avhole one, for a village can't 

compare with the London shops ; 
One window sells drums, dolls, kites, carts, batts, Clout's 

balls, and the other sells malt and hops. 
And Mrs. Brown, in domestic economy not to be a bit 

behind her betters, 
Lets her house to a milliner, a watchmaker, a rat-catcher, a 

cobler, livss in it herself, and it's the post-office for letters. 
Now I 've gone through all the village — ay, from end to end, 

save and except one more house, 
But I have n'i come to that — and I hope I never shall — and 

that 's the Village Poor-House ! 



A VALENTINE. 
THE WEATHER. To P. Murphy, Esq., M.N.S. 

These, properly speaking, being esteemed tlio three arms of Meteoric action. 

Dear Murphy, to improve her charms, 

Your servant humbly begs ; 
She thanks you for her leash of arms, 

But wants a brace of legs. 

Moreover, as you promise folks, 

On certain days a drizzle ; 
She thinks, in case she cannot rain, 

She should have means to mizzle. 

Some lightning too may just fall due, 

When woods begin to moult ; 
And if slie cannot ''fork it out," 

She '11 wish to make a bolt ! 



300 TO FANNY. 

TO FANNY. 

" Gay being, born to flutter !" — Sale's Glbte. 

I6 this your faith, then, Fanny ? 

What, to chat with every Dun ! 
I 'm the one, then, but of many, 

Not of many, but the One ! 

Last night you smiled on all. Ma'am. 

That appeared in scarlet dress ; 
And your Regimental Ball, Ma'am, 

Looked a little like a Mess. 

I thought that of the Sogers 

(As the Scotch say) one might do, 

And that I, slight Ensign Rogers, 
Was the chosen man and true. 

But 'Sblood ! your eye was busy 
With that ragamuffin mob ; — 

Colonel Buddell — Colonel Dizzy — 
And Lieutenant- Colonel Cobb. 

General Joblin, General -Jodkin, 
Colonels — Kelly, Felly, with 

Majors — Sturgeon, Truffle, Bodkin, 
And the Quarter-master Smith. 

Major PoAvderum — Major Dowdrum— 
Major Chowdrum — Major Bye — 

Captain Tawney — Captain Fawney, 
Captain Any-one — but I ! 



TO PANNY. gQl 



Deuce take it ! when the regiment 
You so praised, I onlj thought 

That jou loved it in abridgment, 
But I now am better taught I 

I went, as loving man goes. 
To admire thee in quadrilles ; 

But Fan, jou dance fandangoes 
With just any fop that wills I 

I went with notes before us, 
On the laj of Love to touch ; 

But with all the Corps in chorus, 
Oh ! it is indeed too much ! 

You once — ere you contracted 
For the Army — seemed my own : 

But now you laugh with all the Staff, 
And I may sigh alone ! — 

I know not how it chances. 
When my passion ever dares, 

But the warmer my advances, 
Then the cooler are your airs. 

I am, I don't conceal it. 

But I am a little hurt ; 
You 're a Fan, and I must feel it, 

Fit for nothing but a FUrt t 

•I dreamt thy smiles of beauty 

On myself alone did fall ; 
But alas 1 " Cosi Fan Tutti !" 

It is thus, Fau, thus with all 1 



302 THE BOY AT THE NORE. 

You have taken quite a mob in 
Of new military flames ;— 

They would make a fine Round Robin 
If I gave you all their names I 



THE BOY AT THE NORE. 

" Alone I did it! — Boy I" — Coriolanus. 

I SAY, little Boy at the Nore, 

Do you come from the small Isle of Man ? 
Why, your history a mystery must be — 

Come tell us as much as you can, 

Little Boy at the Nore ! 

You live it seems wholly on water, 

Which your Gambler calls living in clover ; — 
But how comes it, if that is the case. 

You 're eternally half seas over — 

Little boy at the Nore ? 

While you ride — while you dance — while you float — 
Never mind your imperfect orthography ; — 

But give us as well as you can. 
Your watery auto-biography. 

Little Boy at the Nore ! 

LITTLE BOY AT THE NORE LOQUITUR. 

I 'm the tight little Boy at the Nore, 

In a sort of sea negus I dwells ; 
Half and half 'twixt salt-water and Port, 

I 'm reckoned the first of the swells — 

I 'm the Buy- at the Nore! 



THE BOY AT THE Nqre. 303 

I lives with my toes to the flounders. 

And watches through long days and nights ; 
Yet, cruelly eager, men look — 

To catch the first glimpse of my lights — 
I'm the Boy at the Nore. 

I never gets cold in the head, 

So my life on salt water is sweet — 
I think I owes much of my health, 

To being well used to wet feet — 

As the Boy at the Nora. 

There 's one thing, I 'm never in debt : ' 

Nay! — I liquidates more than I oiighter ;^ 

So the man to beat Cits as goes by, 
In keeping the head above water, 

Is the Boy at the Nore. 

I 've seen a good deal of distress 

Lots of Breakers in Ocean's Gazette ; 
They should do as I do — rise o'er all ; 

Ay, a good floating capital get, 

Like the Boy at the Nore ! 

I 'm a'ter the sailor's own heart, 

And cheers him, in deep water rolling ; 

And the friend of all friends to Jack Junk, 
Ben Backstay, Tom Pipes, and Tom Bowling, 
Is the Boy at the Nore ! 

Could I e'er but grow up, I 'd be off 

For a week to make love to my wheedles ; 
If the tight little Boy at the Nore 

Could but catch a nice girl at the Needles, 
We 'd have tivo at the Nore ! 
* A word caught from some American Trader in passing. 



304 SHOOTING PAINS. 

They thinks little of sizes on water, 
On big waves the tiny one skulks — 

While the river has Men of War on it — 

"Yes — the Thames is oppressed with Great Hulks, 
And the Boy's at the Nore 1 

But I 've done — for the water is heaving 
Round my body, as though it would sink it I 

And I 've been so long pitching and tossing, 
That sea-sick — you 'd hardly now think it — 
Is the Boy at the Nore 1 



SHOOTING PAINS. 

"The charge is prepared." — Macheath. 

If I shoot any more I '11 be shot, 

For ill-luck seems determmed to star me, 

I have marched the whole day 

With a gun — for no pay — 
Zounds, I 'd better have been in the army I 

What matters Sir Christopher's leave ; 
To his manor I 'm sorry I came yet 1 

With confidence fraught. 

My two pointers I brought. 
But we are not a point towards game yet I 

And that gamekeeper too, with advice ! 
Of my course he has been a nice chalker. 

Not far, were his words, 

I could go without birds : 
If my legs could cry out, they 'd cry " Walker I" 



SHOOTING PAINS. 305 

Not Hawker could find out a flaw — 

My appointments are modern and Mantonj, 

And I 've brought my own man, 

To mark down all he can, 
But I can't find a mark fi^r my Antony ! 

The partridges — where can they lie ? 
I have promised a leash to Miss Jervas, 

As the least I could do ; 

But without even two 
To brace me — I 'm getting quite nervous ! 

To the pheasants — how well they 're preserved ! 
My sport 's not a jot more beholden, 

As the birds are so shy, 

For my friends I must buy. 
And so send " silver pheasants and golden." 

I have tried ev'ry form for a hare. 

Every patch, every furze, that could shroud her, 

With toil unrelaxed, 

Till my patience is taxed, 
But I cannot be taxed for hare-powder, 

I 've been roaming for hours in three flats 
In the hope of a snipe for a snap at ; 

But still vainly I court 

The percussioning sport, 
I find nothing for " setting my cap at !" 

A woodcock — this month is the time — 
Right and left I 've made ready my lock for, 

With well-loaded double, 

But spite of my trouble, 
Neither barrel can I find a cock for ! 
VOL. n. 20 



306 SHOOTING PAINS. 

A rabbit I should not despise, 

But they lurk in their burrows so lowlj, 

This day 's the eleventh, 
It is not the seventh, 
But they seem to be keeping it hole-y. 

For a mallard I 've waded the marsh, 

And haunted each pool, and each lake — oh ! 

Mine is not the luck, 

To obtain thee, Duck, 
Or to doom thee, Drake, like a Draco ! 

Tor a field-fare I Ve fared far a-field, 
Large or small I am never to sack bird, 

Not a thrush is so kind 

As to fly, and I find 
I may whistle myself for a black-bird ! 

I am angry, I 'm hungry, I 'm dry. 
Disappointed, and sullen, and goaded, 

And so weary an elf, 

I am sick of myself. 
And with Number One seem overloaded. 

As well one might beat round St. Paul's, 
And look out for a cock or a hen there ; 

I have searched round and round 

All the Baronet's ground. 
But Sir Christopher has n't a wren there ! 

Joyce may talk of his excellent caps. 
But for nightcaps they set me desiring, 

And it 's really too bad. 

Not a shot I have had 
With Hall's Powder, renowned for " quick firing." 



PAIRED NOT MATCHED. ' 307 

If this is what people call sport, 

Oh ! of sporting I can't have a high sense, 

And there still remains one 

More mischance on mj gun — 
''Fined for shooting without any license." 



PAIRED NOT MATCHED. 

Of wedded bliss 

Bards sing amiss, 
I cannot make a song of it ; 

For I am small, 

Mj wife is tall, 
And that 's the short and long of it; 

When we debate 

It is my fate 
To always have the wrong of it; 

For I am small 

And she is tall, 
And that 's the short and long of it ! 

And when I speak 

My voice is weak. 
But hers — she makes a gong of it ; 

For I am small, 

And she is tall. 
And that 's the short and long of it; 

She has, in brief, 

Command in Chief, 
And I'm but Aide-de-camp of it; 

For I am small, 

And she is tall, 
And that 's the short and long of it ! 



308 PAIRED NOT MATCHED. 

She gives to me 

The weakest tea, 
And takes the whole Souchong of it 5 

For I am small, 

And she is tall, 
And that 's the short and long of it; 

She '11 sometimes grip 

My buggy whip, 
And make me feel the thong of it ; 

For I am small. 

And she is tall, 
And that 's the short and long of it ! 

Against my life 

She '11 take a knife. 
Or fork, and dart the prong of it ; 

For I am small, 

And she is tall. 
And that 's the short and long of it I 

I sometimes think 

I '11 take to drink, 
And hector when I 'm strong of it 

For I am small, 

And she is tall, 
And that 's the short and long of it! 

0, if the bell 

Would ring her knell, 
I 'd make a gay ding-dong of it; 

For I am small, 

And she is tall, 
And that's the short and long of it! 



THE COMPASS, WITH VARIATIONS. 309 

THE COMPASS, WITH VARIATIONS. 

" The Needles have sometimes been fatal to Mariners." — Picture of Isle of "Wight. 

One close of day — 'twas in the bay 

Of Naples, bay of glory ! 

While light was hanging crowns of gold 

On mountains high and hoary, 

A gallant bark got under way, 

And with her sails my story. 

For Leghorn she was bound direct, 
With wine and oil for cargo. 
Her crew of men some nine or ten, 
The captain's name was lago; 
A good and gallant bark she was, 
La Donna (called) del Lago. 

Bronzed mariners were her's to view, 
With brown cheeks, clear or muddy, 
Dark, shining eyes, and coal-black hair, 
Meet heads for painter's study ; 
But 'midst their tan there stood one man, 
Whose cheek was fair and ruddy ; 

His brow was high, a loftier brow 
Ne'er shone in song or sonnet. 
His hair a little scant, and when 
He doffed his cap or bonnet. 
One saw that Grey had gone beyond 
A premiership upon it ! 

His eye — a passenger was he, 
The cabin he had hired it — 



310 THE COMPASS, WITH VARIATIONS. 

His eye was grey, and wheii he looked 
Around, the prospect fired it — 
A fine poetic light^ as if 
The Apple-Nine mspired it. 

His frame was stout, in height about 
'Six feet — well made and portly; 
Of dress and manner just to give 
A sketch, but very shortly, 
His order seemed a composite 
Of rustic with the courtly. 

He ate and quaffed, and joked and laughed. 

And chatted with the seamen, 

And often tasked their skill and asked 

'' What weather is "t to be, man?" 

No demonstration there appeared 

That he was any demon. 

No sort of sign there was that he 
Could raise a stormy rumpus. 
Like Prospero make breezes blow, 
And rocks and billows thump us — 
But little we supposed what he 
Could with the needle compass ! 

Soon came a storm — the sea at first 
Seemed lying almost fallow — 
When lo ! full crash, with billowy dash, 
Erom clouds of black and yellow. 
Came such a gale, as blows but once 
A cent'ry, like the aloe ! 

Our stomachs we had just prepared 
To vest a small amount in ; 



THE COMPASS, WITH VARIATIONS. 311 

When, gush ! a flood of brine came down 
The skylight — quite a fountain, 
And right on end the table reared, 
Just like the Table Mountain. 

Down rushed the soup, down gushed the wine, 

Each roll, its role repeating, 

Rolled down — the round of beef declared 

For parting — not for meating ! 

Off flew the fowls, and all the game 

Was " too far gone for eating !" 

Down knife and fork — down went the pork, 

The lamb too broke its tether ; 

Down mustard went — each condiment — 

Salt — pepper — all together ! 

Down every thing, like craft that seek 

The Downs in stormy weather. 

Down plunged the Lady of the Lake, 
Her timbers seemed to sever ; 
Down, down, a dreary derry down, 
Such lurch she had gone never ; 
She almost seemed about to take 
A bed of doAvn forever ! 

Down dropped the captain's nether jaw, 

Thus robbed of all its uses. 

He thought he saw the Evil One 

Beside Vesuvian sluices, 

Playing at dice for soul and ship, 

And throwing Sink and Deuces. 

Down fell the steward on his face, 
To all the Saints commending ; 



I 

812 THE COMPASS, WITH VAEIATIONS. 



"> 



And candles to the Virgin vowed, 
As save-alls 'gainst his ending. 
Down fell the mate, he thought his fate, 
Check-mate, was close impending ! 

Down fell the cook — the cabin boy, 
Their beads with fervor telling, 
While alps of serge, with snowy verge, 
Above the yards came yelling. 
Down fell the crew, and on their knees 
Shuddered at each white swelling ! 

Down sunk the sun of bloody hue, 

His crimson light a cleaver 

To each red rover of a wave : 

To eye of fancy-weaver, 

Neptune, the God, seemed tossing in 

A raging scarlet fever! 

Sore, sore afraid, each papist prayed 

To Saint and Virgin Mary ; 

But one there was that stood composed 

Amid the waves' vagary ; 

As staunch as rock, a true game-cock 

'Mid chicks of Mother Gary ! 

His ruddy cheek retained its streak, 
No danger seemed to shrink him ; 
His step still bold — of mortal mould 
The crew could hardly think him : 
The Lady of the Lake, he seemed 
To know, could never sink him. 

Relaxed at last the furious gale 
Quite out of breath with racing; 



THE COMPASS, WlTIi VARIATIONS. 313 



The boiling flood in milder mood, 
With gentler billows chasing ; 
From stem to stern, with frequent turn, 
The Stranger took to pacing. 

And as he walked to self he talked, 

Some ancient ditty thrumming, 

In under tone, as not alone — 

Now whistling, and now humming — 

'' You 're welcome, Charlie," " Cowdenknowes,'' 

''Kenmure," or '' Campbells' Coming." 

Down went the wind, down went the wave, 

Pear quitted the most finical ; 

The Saints, I wot, were soon forgot, 

And Hope was at the pinnacle : 

When rose on high, a frightful cry — 

^' The Devil's in the binnacle 1" 

" The Saints be near," the helmsman cried, 

His voice with quite a falter — 

^' Steady 's my helm, but every look 

The needle seems to alter ; 

God only knows Avhere China lies, 

Jamaica, or Gibraltar!" 

The captain stared aghast at mate, 

The pilot at th' apprentice ; 

No fancy of the German Sea 

Of Fiction the event is : 

But when they at the compass looked, 

It seemed non compass mentis. 

Now north, now south, now east, now west, 
The Avavering point was shaken, 



I 



814 THE COMPASS, AYITH VARIATIONS. 

'T was past the whole philosophy 
Of Newton, or of Bacon ; 
Never by compass, till that hour 
Such latitudes were taken ! 

With fearful speech, each after each 
Took turns in the inspection ; 
They found no gun — no iron — none 
To vary its direction ; 
It seemed a new magnetic case 
Of Poles in Insurrection ! 

Farewell to wives, farewell their lives, 

And all their household riches ; 

Oh ! while they thought of girl or boy, 

And dear domestic niches, 

All down the side which holds the heart, 

That needle gave them stitches. 

With deep amaze, the Stranger gazed 
To see them so white-livered : 
And walked abaft the binnacle, 
To know at what they shivered ; 
But when he stood beside the card, 
St. Josef 1 how it quivered ! 

No fancy-motion, brain-begot, 
In eye of timid dreamer — 
The nervous finger of a sot 
Ne'er showed a plainer tremor ; 
To every brain it seemed too plain. 
There stood th' Infernal Schemer 1 

Mixed brown and blue each visage grew, 
Just like a pullet" s o;izzard ; 



" PLEASE TO RING THE BELLE." 815 

Meanwhile the captain's wandering wit, 
From tacking like an izzard, 
Bore down in this plain course at last, 
'' It 's Michael Scott— the Wizard !" 

A smile past o'er the ruddy &ce, 

" To see the poles so falter 

I 'm puzzled, friends, as much as you, 

For with no fiends I palter ; 

Michael I 'm not — although a Scott — 

My Christian name is Walter." 

Like oil it fell, that name, a spell 

On all the fearful faction ; 

The captain's head (for he had read) 

Confessed the Needle's action, 

And bowed to Him in whom the North 

Has lodged its main attraction ! 



" PLEASE TO RING THE BELLE." 

I '11 tell you a story that 's not in Tom Moore : — 
Young Love likes to knock at a pretty girl's door : 
So he called upon Lucy — 't was just ten o'clock — 
Like a spruce single man, with a smart double knock. 

Now a hand-maid, whatever her fingers be at, 
Will run like a puss when she hears a rat-tsit : 
So Lucy ran up — and m two seconds more 
Had questioned the stranger and answered the door. 

The meeting was bliss ; but the parting was woe : 
For the moment will come when such comers must go ; 
So she kissed him, and whispered — poor innocent thing — 
'^The next time you come, love, pray come with a ring." 



316 THE LAMENT OF TOBY. 

THE LAMENT OE TOBY, 

THE LEARNED PIG. 
" A little learning is a dangerous thing." — Pope. 

HEAVY day ! oh day of woe ! 

To misery a poster, 
Why was I ever farrowed — why 

Not spitted for a roaster ? 

In this world, pigs, as well as men, 
Must dance to fortune's fiddlings, 

But must I give the classics up, 
Eor barley-meal and middlings? 

Of what avail Inat I could spell 
And read, just like my betters, 

If I must come to this at last, 
To litters, not to letters ? 



'■) 



0, why are pigs made scholars of? 

It baffles my discerning, 
What griskins, fry, and chitterlings, 

Can have to do with learning. 

Alas ! my learning once drew cash, 
But public fame 's unstable, 

So I must turn a pig again, 
And fatten for the table. 

To leave my literary line 
My eyes get red and leaky ; 

But Giblett does n't want me bluBy 
But red and white, and streaky. 



THE LAMENT OF TOBY. 317 

Old Mullins used to cultivate 

Mj learning like a gard"ner ; 
But Giblett only thinks of lard, 

And not of Dr. Lardner ! 

He does not care about my brain 

The value of two coppers, 
All that he thinks about my head 

Is, how I'm off for choppers. 

Of all my literary kin 

A fiirewell must be taken, 
Good-bye to the poetic Hogg ! 

The philosophic Bacon ! 

Day after day my lessons fade, 

My intellect gets muddy ; 
A trough I have, and not a desk, 

A sty — and not a study ! 

Another little month, and then 

My progress ends, like Bunyan's ; 
The seven sages that I loved 

Will be chopped up with onions ! 

Then over head and ears in brine 

They '11 souse me, like a salmon, 
My mathematics turned to brawn, 
" My logic into gammon. 

My Hebrew will all retrograde. 

Now I 'm put up to fatten ; 
My Greek, it will all go to grease ; 

The Dogs will have my Latin ! 



318 THE LAMENT OF TOBY. 

Farewell to Oxford ! — and to Bliss ! 

To Milman, Crowe, and Glossop — 
I now must be content with chats, 

Instead of learned gossip ! 

Farewell to " Town !" farewell to " Gown V^ 
I 've quite outgrown the latter — 

Instead of Trencher-cap mj head 
Will soon be in a platter ! 

O why did I at Brazen- Nose 

Rout up the roots of knowledge ? 

A butcher that can't read will kill 
A pig that 's been to college ! 

For sorrow I could stick myself. 
But conscience is a dasher; 

A thing that would be rash in man, 
In me would be a rasher ! 

One thing I ask — when I am dead 
And past the Stygian ditches — 

And that is, let my schoolmaster 
Have one of my two flitches : 

'T was he who taught my letters so 
I ne'er mistook or missed 'em, 

Simply by ringing at the nose, 
According to Bells system. 



MY SON AND HEIR. 319 



MY SON AND HEIR. 

My mother bids me bind my heir, 

But not the trade where I should bind; 

To place a boy — the how and where — • 
It is the plague of parent-kind ! 

She does not hint the slightest plan, 
Nor what indentures to indorse ; 

Whether to bind him to a man — 
Or, like Mazeppa, to a horse. 

What line to choose of likely rise, 
To something in the Stocks at last — 

*' Fast bind, fast find," the proverb cries, 
I find I cannot bind so fast ! 



A Statesman James can never be ; 

A Tailor ? — there I only learn 
His chief concern is cloth, and he 

Is always cutting his concern. 

A Seedsman ? — I 'd not have him so ; 

A Grocer's plum might disappoint ; 
A Butcher ? — no, not that — although 

I hear " the times are out of joint I'* 

Too many of all trades there be, 

Like Pedlars, each has such a pack ; 

A merchant selling; coals ? — we see 
The buyer send to cellar back. 



320 MY SON AND HEIR- 

A Hardware dealer ? — that might please, 
But if his trade's foundation leans 

On spikes and nails, he won't have ease 
When he retires upon his means. 

A Soldier ? — there he has not nerveC' 
A Sailor seldom lays up pelf : 

A Baker ? — no, a baker serves 
His customer before himself. 

Dresser of hair ? — that 's not the r^rt^ 
A joiner jars with his desire — 

A Churchman ? — James is very shoi^^ . 
And cannot to a church aspire. 

A Lawyer ? — that 's a hardish term ! 

A Publisher might give him ease, 
If he could into Longman's firm, 

Just plunge at once " in medias Rek 

A shop for pot, and pan, and cup, 
Such brittle Stock I can't advise ; 

A Builder running houses up, 

Their gains are stories — may b© V\, 

A Coppersmith I can't endure — 
Nor petty Usher A, B, C-ing ; 

A Publican no father sure, 

Would be the author of his being "^ 

A Paper-maker ? — come he must 
To rags before he sells a sheet — 

A Miller ? — all his toil is just 
To make a meal — he does not eat. 



MY SON AND HEIR. 321 

A Currier ? — that by favor goes — 

A Chandler gives me great misgiving — 

An Undertaker ? — one of those 

That do not hope to get their living ! 

Three Golden Balls ? — I like them not ; 

An Auctioneer I never did — 
The victim of a slavish lot, 

Obliged to do as he is bid I 

A Broker watching fall and rise 

Of Stock ? — I 'd rather deal in stone — 

A Printer ? — there his toils comprise 
Another's work beside his own. 

A Cooper ? — neither I nor Jem 

Have any taste or turn for that — 
A Fish retailer ? — but with him 

One part of trade is always flat. 

A Painter ? — long he would not live — 

An Artist 's a precarious craft — 
In trade Apothecaries give, 

But very seldom take, a draught. 

A Glazier ? — what if he should smash ! 

A Crispin he shall not be made — 
A Grazier may be losing cash, 

Although he drives " a roaring trade." 

Well, something must be done ! to look 

On all my little works around — 
James is too big a boy, like book. 

To leave upon the shelf unbound. 

VOL. II. 21 



322 THE FOX AND THE HEN. 

But what to do ? — mj temples ache 

From evening's dew till morning's pearl, 

What course to take my boy to make — 
Oh could I make my boy — a girl 1 



THE FOX AND TtlE HEK 

A. FABLE. 
Speaking within compass, as to fabulousness I prefer Southcote to ITbrtTicote. 

PlGROGROMITtrS. 

One day, or night, no matter where or when, 
Sly Reynard, like a foot-pad, laid his pad 
Right on the body of a speckled Hen, 
Determined upon taking all she had ; 
And like a very bibber at his bottle, 
Began to draw the claret from her throttle ; 
Of course it put her in a pretty pucker, 
And with a scream as high 
As she could cry, 
She called for help — she had enough cf sucker. 

Dame Partlet's scream 
Waked, luckily, the house-dog from his dream, 

And, with a savage growl 

In answer to the fowl, 
He bounded forth against the prowling sinner, 
And, uninvited, came to the Fox Dinner. 

Sly Reynard, heedful of the coming doom, 

Thought, self-deceived, 

He should not be perceived. 
Hiding his bnish within a neighboring broom ; 
But quite unconscious of a Poacher's snare, 



THE FOX AND THE HEN. 323 

And caught in copper noose, 

And looking like a goose, 
Found that his fate had '' hung upon a hare f 
His tricks and turns were rendered of no use to him, 
And, worst of all, he saw old surly Tray 

Coming to play 

Tray-Deuce with him. 

Tray, an old Mastiff bred at Dunstable, 
Under his Master, a most special constable, 
Instead of killing Reynard in a furj'-, 
Seized him for legal trial by a Jury ; 
But Juries — ^sop was a sheriff then — 
Consisted of twelve Brutes and not of Men. 



But first the Elephant sat on the body — 
I mean the Hen — and proved that she was dead, 
To the veriest fool's head 
Of the Booby and the Noddy. 

Acordingly, the Stork brought in a bill 

Quite true enough to kill ; 
And then the OavI was called — for, mark, 
The OavI can witness in the dark. 
To make the evidence more plain. 
The Lynx connected all the chain. 
In short there was no quirk or quibble 
At which a legal Rat could nibble ; 
The Culprit Avas as far beyond hope's bounds 
As if the Jury had been packed— o^ hounds, 
Reynard, however, at the utmost nick, 
Is seldom quite devoid of shift and trick ; 



324 THE FOX AXD THE HEN. 

Accordingly our cunning Fox, 
Through certain influence, obscurely channeled, 
A friendly Camel got into the box, 
When 'gainst his life the Jury was impaneled. 

Now, in the Silly Isles such is the law, 

If Jurors should withdraw, 
They are to have no eating and no drinking 
Till all are starved into one way of thinking. 

Thus Reynard's Jurors, who could not agree. 
Were locked up strictly, without bit or mummock, 
Till every Beast that only had one stomach, 
Bent to the Camel, who was blest with three. 
To do them justice, they debated 
From four till ten, while dinner waited, 
When thirst and hunger got the upper, 
And each inclined to mercy, and hot supper : 
" Not guilty" was the word, and Master Fox 
Was freed to murder other hens and cocks. 

MORAL. 

What moral greets us by this tale's assistance 
But that the Solon is a sorry Solon, 

Who makes the full stop of a Man's existence 
Depend upon a Colon? 



THE COMET, 325 



THE COMET. 

AN ASTRONOMICAL ANECDOTE, 

* I camnot fill up a blank better than with a short history of this self-same Starling,'^ 

Stekne's Sentimental Journey. 

. Amongst professors of astronomy, 
Adepts in the celestial economy, 

The name of }l*^****\'s very often cited, 
And justly so, for he is hand and glove 
With every bright intelligence above ; 
Indeed, it was his custom so to stop. 
Watching the stars upon the house's top. 

That once upon a time he got be-knighted. 

In his observatory thus coquetting 

With Yenus — or with Juno gone astray, 
All sublunary matters quite forgetting 
In his flirtations with the winking stars, 
Acting the spy — it might be upon Mars — 

A new Andre ; 
Or, like a Tom of Coventry, sly peeping 
At Dian sleeping ; 
Or ogling thro' his glass 
Some heavenly lass 
Tripping with pails along the Milky Way ; 
Or looking at that Wain of Charles the Martyr's : — 

Thus he was sitting, watchman of the sky, 
When lo ! a something with a tail of flame 

Made him exclaim, 
"My stars !" — he always puts that stress on my — 
" Ml/ stars and garters !" 



326 THE COMET, 

'' A comet, sure as I 'm alive ! 
A noble one as I should wish to view ; 
It can't be Hallej's though, that is not due 

Till eighteen thirtj-five. 
Magnificent ! — how fine his fiery trail ! 
Zounds ! 'tis a pity, though, he comes unsought — 
Unasked — unreckoned— in no human thought — ■ 

He ought — he ought — he ought 

To have been caught 
With scientific salt upon his tail ! 

" I looked no more for it, I do declare, 
Than the Great Bear ! 

As sure as Tycho-Brahe is dead, 
It really entered in my head 
No more than Berenice's Hair !" 
Thus musing, Heaven's Grand Inquisitor 
Sat gazing on the uninvited visitor 
Till John, the serving-man, came to the upper 
Regions, with " Please your Honor, come to supper.'' 

"'' Supper ! good John, to-night I shall not sup 
Except on that phenomenon — look up !" 
"Not sup !" cried John, thinking with consternation 
That supping on a star must be 5/arvation, 

Or ev'n to batten 
On Ignes Fatui would never fatten. 
His visage seemed to say — that very odd is — 
But still his master the same tune ran on, 
" I can't come down — go to the parlor, John, 
And say I 'm supping with the heavenly bodies. 

'' The heavenly bodies !" echoed John, " Ahem !" 
His mind still full of famishing alarms, 



THE COMET. 327 

" 'Zooks, if jour Honor sups with them^ 
In helping, somebody must make long arms !" 
He thouo;bt his master's stomach was in danger, 
But still in the same tone replied the Knight, 

" Go down, John, go, I have no appetite. 
Say I 'm engaged with a celestial stranger." — 
Quoth John, not much au fait in such affairs, 
"Wouldn't the stranger take a bit down stairs?" 
*' No," said the master, smiling, and no wonder, 

At such a blunder, 
*' The stranger is not quite the thing you think, 
He wants no meat or drink. 
And one may doubt quite reasonably whether 

He has a mouth, 
Seeing his head and tail are joined together, 
Behold him — there he is, John, in the South." 

John looked up with his portentous eyes. 
Each rolling like a marble in its socket 
At last the fiery tad-pole spies, 
And, full of Vauxhall reminiscence, cries, 
" A rare good rocket !" 

" A what? A rocket, John ! Far from it ! 

What you behold, John, is a comet ; 
One of those most eccentric things 

That in all ages 

Have puzzled sages 

And frio-htened kino;s ; 
With fear of change that flaming meteor, John, 
Perplexes sovereigns, throughout its range" — ■ 

''Do he?" cried John; 

'' Well, let him flare on, 
/have n't got no sovereigns to change !" 



328 I CANNOT BEAR A GUN, 



I CANNOT BEAR A GUN. 

*' Timidity is generally reckoned an essential attribute of the fair sex, and this absurd 
notion gives rise to more felse starts than a race for the Leger. Hence screams at mice, 
fits at spiders, faces at toads, jumps at lizards, flights from daddy longlega, panics at 
wasps, saii^e qui peut at the sight of a gun. Surely, when the military exercise is 
made a branch of education at so many ladles' academies, the use of the musket would 
only be a judicious step further in the march of mind. I should not despair, in a 
month's practice, of making the most timid British female fond of small-arms." 

Hints by a CofiPoaAU 

It can't be minced, I 'm quite convinced 

All girls are fujl of flam, 
Their feelings fine and feminine 

Are nothino^ else but sham. 
On all their tricks I need not fix, 

I '11 only mention one, 
How many a Miss will tell you this, 

'' I cannot bear a gun !" 

There 's cousin Bell can't 'bide the smell 

Of powder — horrid stufi"! 
A single pop will make her drop, J 

She shudders at a puff. 
My Manton near, with aspen fear 

Will make her scream and run ; 
"It's always so, you brute, you know 

I cannot bear a gun !" 

About my flask I must not ask, 

I must not wear a belt, 
I must not take a punch to make 

My pellets, card or felt ; 
And if I just allude to dust. 

Or speak of number one, 
" I beg you '11 not — don't talk of shot, 

I cannot bear a gun !" 



I CANNOT BEAR A GUN. 329 

Percussion cap I dare not snap, 

I may not mention Hall, 
Or raise my voice for Mr. Joyce, 

His wadding to recall ; 
At Hawker's book I must not look, 

All shooting I must shun, 
Or else — " It 's hard, you 've no regard, 

I cannot bear a gun !" 

The very dress I wear no less 

Must suit her timid mind, 
A blue or black must clothe my back, 

With swallow-tails behind ; 
Bj fustian, jean, or velveteen, 

Her nerves are overdone ; 
'' Oh do not, John, put gaiters on, 

I cannot bear a gun 1" 

Even little James she snubs, and blames 

His Lilliputian train. 
Two inches each from mouth to breech. 

And charged with half a grain — 
His crackers stopped, his squibbing dropped, 

He has no fiery fun, 
And all thro' her " How dare you, sir? 

I cannot bear a gun !" 

*Yet Major Flint— the Devil's in 't ! 

May talk from morn to night. 
Of springing mines, and twelves and nines, 

And volleys left and right, 
Of voltigeurs and tirailleurs, 

And bullets by the ton : 
She never dies of fright, or cries 

'' I cannot bear a gun I" 



330 I CANNOT BEAR A GUN. 

It stirs my bile to see her smile 

At all his bang and whiz, 
But if I talk of morning walk, 

And shots as good as his, 
I must not name the fallen game : 

As soon as I 've begun, 
She 's in her pout, and crying out, 

*' I cannot bear a gun I" 

Yet, underneath the rose, her teeth 

Are false, to match her tongue : 
Grouse, partridge, hares, she never spares, 

Or pheasants, old or young — 
On widgeon, teal, she makes a meal, 

And yet objects to none ; 
*' What have I got, it 's full of shot ! 

I cannot bear a gun !" 

At pigeon-pie she is not shy, 

Her taste it never shocks, 
Though they should be from Battersea, 

So famous for blue rocks ; 
Yet when I bring the very thing 

My marksmanship has won. 
She cries " Lock up that horrid cup, 

I cannot bear a gun ! ' ' 

Like fool and dunce I got her once 

A box at Drury Lane, 
And by her side I felt a pride 

I ne'er shall feel asfain ; 
To read the bill it made her ill, 

And this excuse she spun, 
" Der Freyschiitz, oh, seven shots ! you know, 

I cannot bear a gun !" 



I CANNOT BEAR A GUN. 331 

Yet at a hint from Major Flint, 

Her very hands she rubs, 
And quickly drest in all her best, 

Is off to Wormwood Scrubbs. 
The whole review she sits it through, 

With noise enough to stun, 
And never winks, or even thinks, 

" I cannot bear a gun !" 

She thus may blind the Major's mind 

In mock-heroic strife, 
But let a bout at war break out, 

And where 's the soldier's wife, 
To take his kit and march a bit 

Beneath a broiling sun ? 
Or will she cry, ' ' My dear, good-bye, 

I cannot bear a gun !" 

If thus she doats on army coats, 

And regimental cuffs, 
The yeomanry might surely be 

Secure from her rebuffs ; 
But when I don my trappings on, 

To follow Captain Dunn, 
My carbine's gleam provokes a scream, 

" I cannot bear a gun. " 

It can't be minced, I 'm quite convinced, 

All girls are full of flam. 
Their feelings fine, and feminine, 

Are nothing else but sham ; 
On all their tricks I need not fix, 

I '11 only mention one, 
How many a Miss will tell you this, 

'' I cannot bear a gun !" 



832 trimmer's exercise. 

TRIMMER'S EXERCISE, 

FOR THE USE OF CHILDREN. 

HerEj come, Master Timothy Todd, 

Before we have done you '11 look grimmer; 

You 've been spelling some time for the rod. 
And your jacket shall know I 'm a Trimmer. 

You don't know your A from your B, 
So backward you are in your Primer : 

Don't kneel — you shall go on my knee, 
For I '11 have you to know I 'm a Trimmer. 

This morning you hindered the cook. 

By melting your dumps in the skimmer ; 

Instead of attending your book — 

But I '11 have you to know I 'm a Trimmer. 

To-day, too, you went to the pond. 

And bathed, though you are not a swimmer ; 

And with parents so doting and fond — 

But I '11 have you to know I 'm a Trimmer. 

After dinner you went to the wine, 

And helped yourself — yes, to a brimmer ; 

You could n't walk straight in a line. 

But I '11 make you to know I 'm a Trimmer. 

You kick little Tomkins about, 

Because he is slighter and slimmer ; 

Are the weak to be thumped by tlie stout ? 
But I '11 have you to know I 'm a Trimmer. 



TO A BAD EIDER. 333 

Then you have a sly pilfering trick, 

Your school-fellows call you the nimmer — 

I will cut to the bone if you kick ! 

For I '11 have you to know I 'm a Trimmer. 

To-day you made game at my back : 

You thmk that my eyes are grown dimmer, 

But I watched you, I 've got a sly knack ! 
And I '11 have you to know I 'm a Trimmer. 

Don't think that my temper is hot, 

It's never beyond a slow simmer; 
I '11 teach you to call me Dame Trot, 

But I '11 have you to know I 'm a Trimmer. 

Miss Edgeworth, or Mrs. Chapone, 

Might melt to behold your tears glimmer j 

Mrs. Barbauld would let you alone. 

But I '11 have you to know I 'm a Trimmer. 



TO A BAD RIDER. 

Why, Mr. Rider, why 

Your nag so ill endorse, man ? 
To make observers cry. 

You 're mounted, but no horseman? 

With elbows out so far 

This thought you can't debar me — • 
Thouo;h no Dras^oon — Hussar — 

You 're surely of the army ! 

I hope to turn M.P. 

You have not any notion, 
How awkward you would be 

At "seconding a motion!" 



334 SYMPTOMS OF OSSIFICATION. 



SYMPTOMS OF OSSIFICATION. 

"An indifference to tears, and blood, and human suffering, that could only belong to 
£oney-parte:''—Life of Napoleon. 

Time was, I always had a drop 

For any tale or sigh of sorrow ; 
My handkerchief I used to sop 

Till often I was forced to borrow ; 
I don't know how it is, but now 

My eyelids seldom want a drying ; 
The doctors, p'rhaps, could tell me how — 

I fear my heart is ossifying ! 

O'er Goethe how I used to weep, 

With turnip cheeks and nose of scarlet, 
When Werter put himself to sleep 

With pistols kissed and cleaned by Charlotte; 
Self-murder is an awful sin, 

No joke there is in bullets flying, 
But now at such a tale I grin — 

I fear my heart is ossifying ! 

The Drama once could shake and thrill 

My nerves, and set my tears a stealing, 
The Siddons then could turn at will 

Each plug upon the main of feeling ; 
At Belvidera now I smile, 

And laugh while Mrs. Haller's crying ; 
'Tis odd, so great a change of style — 

I fear my heart is ossifying ! 

That heart was such — some years ago, 
To see a beggar quite would shock it, 



THOSE EVENING BELLS. 335 

And in his hat I used to throw 

The quarter's savings of mj pocket : 
I never wish — as I did then ! — 

The means from my own purse supplying, 
To turn them all to gentlemen — 

I fear my heart is ossifying ! 

We 've had some serious things of late. 

Our sympathies to beg or borrow, 
New melo-drames, of tragic fate, 

And acts, and songs, and tales of sorrow ; 
Miss Zouch's case, our eyes to melt. 

And sundry actors sad good-bye-ing ; 
But Lord ! — so little have I felt, 

I 'm sure my heart is ossifying ! 



THOSE EVENING BELLS. 

"i'd be a parody." 

Those Evening Bells, those Evening Bells, 
How many a tale their music tells, 
Of Yorkshire cakes and crumpets prime, 
And letters only just in time ! — 

The Muffin-boy has passed away, 
The Postman gone — and I must pay, 
For down below Deaf Mary dwells. 
And does not hear those Evening Bells. 

And so 't will be when she is gone. 
That tuneful peal will still ring on, 
And other maids with timely yells 
Forget to stay those Evening Bells. 



S36 RONDEAU. 

RONDEAU. 

[extracted from a well-known annual.] 

O CURIOUS reader, didst thou ne'er 
Behold a worshipful Lord Maj'r 
Seated in his great civic chair 

So dear ? 

Then cast thy longing eyes this way, 
It is the ninth November day, 
And in his new-born state survey 

One here ! 

To rise from little into great 
Is pleasant : but to sink in state 
From high to lowly is a fate 

Severe. 

Too soon his shine is overcast. 
Chilled by the next November blast ; 
His blushing honors only last 

One year ! 

He casts his fur and sheds his chains, 
And moults till not a plume remains — 
The next impending May'r distrains 

His gear. 

He slips like water through a sieve — 
Ah, could his little splendor live 
Another twelvemonth — he would give 

One ear ! 



DOG-GREL VERSES, BY A POOR BLIND. 337 



DOG-GREL VERSES, BY A POOR BLIND. 

" Hark I hark ! the dogs do bark, 
The beggars are coming . . ."—Old Ballad. 

Oh what shall I do for a doo- ? 
Of sight I have not got a particle, 

Globe, Standard, or Sun, 

Times, Chronicle — none 
Can give me a good leading article. 

A Mastiff once led me about, 

But people appeared so to fear him — 

I might have got pence . 

Without his defence, 
But Charitj would not come near him. 

A Blood-hound was not much amiss, 
But instinct at last got the upper ; 
And tracking Bill Soames, 
And thieves to their homes, 

I never could get home to supper. 

A Fox-hound once served me as guide, 
A good one at hill and at valley ; 

But day after day 

He led me astray. 
To follow a milk- woman's tally. 

A turnspit once did me good turns 
At going and crossing, and stopping ; 

Till one day his breed 

Went off at full speed, 
To spit at a great fire in Wapping. 

VOT.. II. 22 



338 DOG-GREL VERSES, BY A POOR BLIND. 

A Pointer once pointed my way, 

But did not turn out quite so pleasant, 

Each hour I 'd a stop 

At a Poulterer's shop 
To point at a very high pheasant. 

A Pug did not suit me at all, 
The feature unluckily rose up ; 

And folks took offence 

When offering pence, 
Because of his turning his nose up. 

A Butcher once gave me a dog, 

That turned out the worse one of any ; 

A Bull dog's own pup, 

I got a toss up 
Before he had brought me a penny. 

My next was a Westminster Dog, 
From Aistrop the regular cadger; 

But, sightless, I saw 

He never would draw 
A blind man so well as a badger. 

A greyhound I got by a swop, 

But, Lord ! we soon came to divorces : 
He treated my strip 
Of cord like a slip, 
And left me to go my own courses. 

A poodle once towed me along, 

But always Ave came to one harbor: 
To keep his curls smart, 
And shave his hind part. 

He constantly called on a barber. 



DOG-GREL VERSES. BY A POOR BLIND. 389 

Mj next was a Newfoundland brute, 
As big as a calf fit for slaughter : 
But my old cataract 
So truly he backed, 
I always fell into the water. 

I once had a sheep-dog for guide, 
His worth did not value a button ; 

I found it no go, 

A Smithfield Ducrow, 
To stand on four saddles of mutton. 

Mj next was an Esquimaux dog, 

A dog that my bones ached to talk on. 

For picking his ways 

On cold frosty days 
He picked out the slides for a walk on. 

Bijou was a lady-like dog. 

But vexed me at night not a little. 
When tea-time was come 
She would not go home, 
Her tail had once trailed a tin kettle. 

I once had a sort of a Shock, 

And kissed a street post like a brother, 

And lost every tooth 

In learning this truth — 
One blind cannot well lead another. 

A terrier was far from a trump, 
He had one defect, and a thorough, 

I never could stir, 

'Od rabbit the cur ! 
Without going into the Borough. 



840 DOG-GREL VERSES, BY A POOR BLIND. 

My next was Dalmatian, the dog ! 
And led me in danger, oh crikey ! 

By chasing horse heels. 

Between carriage wheels, 
Till I came upon boards that were spiky. 

The next that I had was from Cross, 
And once was a favorite spaniel 
With Nero, now dead, 
And so I was led 
Right up to his den like a Daniel. 

A mongrel I tried, and he did. 
As far as the profit and lossing, 

Except that the kind 

Endangers the blind. 
The breed is so fond of a crossing. 

A setter was quite to my taste. 

In alleys or streets broad or narrow, 

Till one day I met 

A very dead set. 
At a very dead horse in a barrow. 

I once had a dog that went mad, 
And sorry I was that I got him ; 
It came to a run. 
And a man with a gun 
Peppered me when he ought to have shot him. 

My profits have gone to the dogs, 
My trade has been such a deceiver, 

I fear that my aim 

Is a mere losing game, 
Unless I can find a Retriever. 



f 



THE KANeAROOS. S41 



THE KANGAROOS. 



A FABLE. 



A PAIR of married kangaroos 

(The case is oft a human one too) 
Were greatly puzzled once to choose 

A trade to put their eldest son to : 
A little brisk and busy chap, 

As all the little K.'s just then are — 
About some two months off the lap — 

They 're not so long in arms as men are. 

A twist in each parental muzzle 
Betrayed the hardship of the puzzle — 

So much the flavor of life's cup 
Is framed by early wrong or right, 
And Kangaroos we knoAV are quite 

Dependent on their " rearing up." 
The question, with its ins and outs, 
Is intricate and full of doubts ; 

And yet they had no squeamish carings 
For trades unfit or fit for gentry. 
Such notion never had an entry. 

For they had no armorial bearings. 
Howbeit they 're not the last on earth 
That might indulge in pride of birth ; 

Whoe'er has seen their infant young 
Bob in and out their mother's pokes. 

Would own, with very ready tongue, 
They are not born like common folks. 
Well, thus the serious subject stood, 

It kept the old pair watchful nightly, 



342 THE KANGAROOS. 

Debating for young hopeful's good, 
That he might earn his livelihood, 

And go through life (like them) uprightly. 
Arms would not do at all ; no, marry. 
In that Ime all his race miscarry ; 

And agriculture was not proper, 
Unless they meant the lad to tarry 

For ever as a mere clod-hopper. 
He was not well cut out for preaching, 

At least in any striking style : 

And as for being mercantile — 
He was not formed for over-reaching. 
The law — why there still fate ill-starred him, 
And plainly from the bar debarred him : 
A doctor — who would ever fee him ? 

In music he could scarce engage. 

And as for going on the stage 
In tragic socks I think I see him ! 

He would not make a ri^cring-mounter : 

A haberdasher had some merit, 
But there the counter still ran counter, 

For just suppose 

A lady chose 
To ask him for a yard of ferret ! 

A gardener digging up his beds, 

The puzzled parents shook their heads. 

" A tailor would not do because — " 
They paused and glanced upon his paws. 

Some parish post — though fate should place it 
Before him, how could he embrace it ? 



SONNET. 343 

In short, each anxious Kangaroo 
Discussed the matter through and through ; 
Bj day thej seemed to get no nearer, 

'Twas posing quite — 

And in the night 
Of course they saw their way no clearer ! 
At last thus musing on their knees — 
Or hinder elbows if you please — 
It came — no thought was ever brighter ! 
In weighing every why and whether, 
They jumped upon it both together — 
" Let 's make the imp a short-hand writer V^ 

MORAL. 

I wish all human parents so 

Would argue what their sons are fit for ; 
Some would-be critics that I know 

Would be in trades they have more wit for. 



SONNET. 

The sky is glowing in one ruddy sheet ; — 
A ciy of fire ! resounds from door to door ; 
And westward still the thronging people pour ; — 
The turncock hastens to F. P. 6 feet, 
And quick unlocks the fountains of the street ; 
While rumblino' eno-ines, with increasing roar, 
Thunder along to luckless Number Four, 
Where Mr. Doudi makes bread for folks to eat. 
And now through blazing frames, and fiery beams, 
The Gl'^bo, the Sun, the Phoenix, and what not. 
With gushing pipes throw up abundant streams, 
On burning bricks, and twists, on rolls — too hot — • 
And scorching loaves — as if there were no shorter 
And cheaper way of making toast-and- water ! 



344 THE SUB-MARINE, 



THE SUB-MARINK 



It was a brave and jollj wight, 
His cheek was baked and brown, 

For he had been in many climes 
With captains of renown, 

And fought with those who fought so well 
At Nile and Camperdown. 

His coat it was a soldier coat, 

Of red with yellow faced, 
But (merman-like) he looked marine 

All downward from the waist ; 
His trowsers were so wide and blue. 

And quite in sailor taste ! 

He put the rummer to his lips, 

And drank a jolly draught ;. 
He raised the rummer many times — 

And ever as he quaffed, 
The more he drank, the more the ship 

Seemed pitching fore and aft ! 

The ship seemed pitching fore and aft, 

As in a heavy squall ; 
It gave a lurch and down he went, 

Head-foremost in his fall ! 
Three times he did not rise, alas I 

He never rose at all ! 

But down he went, right down at once, 
Like any stone he dived. 



THE SUB-MARINE. 845 

He could not see, or hear, or feel — 

Of senses all deprived ! 
At last he gave a look around 

To see where he arrived ! 

And all that he could see was green, . 

Sea-green on every hand ! 
And then he tried to sound beneath, 

And all he felt was sand ! 
There he was fain to lie, for he 

Could neither sit nor stand ! 

And lo ! above his head there bent 

A strange and starino; lass ! 
One hand was in her yellow hair, 

The other held a glass ; 
A mermaid she must surely be, 

If ever mermaid was ! 

Her fish-like mouth was opened wide, 

Her eyes were blue and pale, 
Her dress was of the ocean green, 

When ruffled by the gale ; 
Thought he " beneath that petticoat 

She hides a salmon-tail !" 

She looked as siren ought to look, 

A sharp and bitter shrew, 
To sino; deceivino; lullabies 

For mariners to rue — 
But when he saw her lips apart, 

It chilled him throuo-h and throuo-h ! 

With either hand he stopped his ears 
Against her evil cry ; 



346 THE SUB-MARINE. 

Alas, alas, for all his care, 
His (loom it seemed to die, 

Her voice went ringing through his head 
It was so sharp and high ! 

He thrust his fingers farther in 

At each unwilling ear, 
But still, in very spite of all, 

The Avords were plain and clear ; 
'' I can't stand here the whole day long, 

To hold your glass of beer !" 

With opened mouth and opened eyes, 

Up rose the Sub-marine, 
And gave a stare to find the sanda 

And deeps where he had been : 
There was no siren with her glass ! 

No waters ocean-green ! 

The wet deception from his eyes 
Kept fading more and more, 

He only saw the bar-maid stand 
With pouting lips before — 

The small green parlor of The Ship, 
And little sanded floor ! 



THE sweep's complaint. 347 

THE SWEEP'S COMPLAINT. 

" I like to meet a sweep — such as come forthwith the dawn, or somewhat earlier 
with their little professional notes, sounding like the peep, peep, of a young sparrow." 
—Essays ok Elia. 

/ " A voice cried Sweep no more ! 

Macbeth hath murdered sweep." — Shakspkabk. 

One morning ere my usual time 
I rose, about the seventh chime, 
When little stunted bojs that climb 

Still linger in the street ; 
And as I walked, I saw indeed 
A sample of the sooty breed, 
Though he was rather run to seed, 

In height above five feet. 
A mongrel tint he seemed to take. 
Poetic simile to make. 
Day through his Martin 'gan to break. 

White overcoming jet. 
From side to side he crossed oblique, 
Like Frenchman who has friends to seek, 
And yet no English word can speak. 

He walked upon the fret : 
And while he sought the dingy job, 
His laboring breast appeared to throb, 
And half a hiccup half a sob 

Betrayed internal woe. 
To cry the cry he had by rote 
He yearned, but law forbade the note. 
Like Chanticleer with roupy throat, 

He gaped — but not a crow ! 
I watched him, and the glimpse I sna.tched 
Disclosed his sorry eyelids patched 
With red, as if the soot had catched 



348 THE sweep's complaint. 

That hung about the lid ; 
And soon I saw the tear-drop stray, 
He did not care to brush away ; 
Thought I the cause he will betray — 

And thus at last he did. 

Wellj here 's a pretty go ! here 's a Gagging Act, if ever 

there was a gagging ! 
But I 'm bound the members as silenced us, in doing it had 

plenty of magging. 
They had l^etter send us all oif^ they had, to the School for 

the Deaf and Dumb, 
To unlarn us our mother tongues, and to make signs and be 

regularly mum. 
But they can't undo natur — as sure as ever the morning 

begins to peep, 
Directly I open my eyes, I can't help calling out Sweep 
As natural as the sparrows among the chimbley-pots that 

say Cheep ! 
For my own part I find my suppressed voice very uneasy, 
And comparable to nothing but having your tissue stopt 

when you are sneezy. 
Well, it "s all up with us ! tho' I suppose we must n't ciy 

all up. 
Here 's a precious merry Christmas, I 'm blest if I can earn 

either bit or sup ! 
If crying Sweep, of mornings, is going beyond quietness's 

border, 
Them as pretends to be fond of silence oughtn't to cry 

hear, hear, and order, order. 
I wonder Mr. Sutton, as we 've sut-on too, don't sympathise 

Avith us 
As a Speaker what don't speak, and that 's exactly our own 

.cus. 



THE SWEEP'S COMPLAINT. 349 

God help us if we don't not crj, how are we to pursue our 

callings ? 
I 'm sure we 're not half so bad as other businesses with 

their bawlings. 
For instance, the general postmen, that at six o'clock go 

about ringing, 
And wake up all the babbies that their mothers have just 

got to sleep with singing. 
Greens ought n't to be cried no more than blacks — to do the 

unpartial job. 
If they bring in a Sootj Bill, they ought to have brought 

in a Dusty Bob. 
Is a dustman's voice more sweet than ourn, when he comes 

a seeking arter the cinders, 
Instead of a little boy like a blackbird in spring, singing 

merrily under your windows ? 
There 's the omnibus cads as plies in Cheapside, and keeps 

calling out Bank and City ; 
Let his Worship, the Mayor, decide if our call of Sweep is 

not just as pretty. 
I can't see why the Jews should be let go about crying Old 

Close thro' their hooky noses. 
And Christian laws should be ten times more hard than the 

old stone laws of Moses, 
Why is n't the mouths of the muffin-men compelled to be 

equally shut? 
Why, because Parliament members eat muffins, but they 

never eat no sut. 
Next year there v/on t be any May-day at all, we shan't 

have no heart to dance, 
And Jack in the Green will go in black like mourning for 

our mischance : 
If we live as long as May, that 's to say, through the hard 

winter and pinching weather, 



350 THE sweep's complaint. 

For I don't see how we're to earn enough to keep body and 

soul together. 
I onlj wish Mr. Wilberforce, or some of them that pities the 

niggers, 
Would take a peep down in our cellars, and look at our 

miserable starving figures, 
A-sitting idle on our empty sacks, and all ready to eat each 

other, 
And a brood of little ones crying for bread to a heart-break- 
ing Father and Mother. 
They have n't a rag of clothes to mend, if their mothers had 

thread and needles, 
But crawl naked about the cellars, poor things, like a swarm 

of common black beadles. 
If they 'd only inquired before passing the Act and taken a 

few such peeps, 
I don't think that any real gentleman would have set his 

face against sweeps. 
Climbing 's an ancient respectable art and if History 's of 

any vally, 
Was recommended by Queen Elizabeth to the great Sir 

Walter Raleigh, 
When he wrote on a pane of glass how I 'd climb, if the 

way I only knew, 
And she writ beneath, if your heart 's afeared, don't venture 

up the flue. 
As for me I was always loyal, and respected all powers that 

are higher. 
But how can I now say God save the King, if I an't to be 

a Cryer? 
There 's London milk, that 's one of the cries, even on Sun- 
day the law allows. 
But ought black sweeps, that are human beasts, to be worser 

•off than black cows? 



THE sweep's complaint. 3o1 

Do we go calling about, when it 's church time, like the 

noisy Billingsgate vermin, 
And disturb the parson with " All alive !" in the middle 

of a funeral sermon? 
But the fish won't keep, not the mackarel won't, is the cry 

of the Parliament elves. 
Every thing, except the sweeps I think, is to be allowed to 

keep themselves ! 
Lord help us! what's to become of us if we mustn't cry 

no more ? 
We shan't do for black mutes to go a standing at a death's 

door. 
And we shan't do to emigrate, no not even to the Hottentot 

nations, 
Por as time wears on, our black will wear off, and then think 

of our situations ! 
And we should not do, in lieu of black-a-moor footmen, to 

serve ladies of quality nimbly, 
For when we were drest in our sky-blue and silver, and large 

frills, all clean and neat, and white silk stockings, if 

they pleased to desire us to sweep the hearth, we 

could n't resist the chimbley. 



852 COCKLE vs. CACKLE. 



COCKLE vs. CACKLE. 

Those who much read advertisements and bills 
Must have seen puffs of Cockle's Pills, 

Called Anti-bilious — 
Which some Physicians sneer at, supercilious, 
But which we are assured, if timely taken, 

May save your liver and bacon ; 
Whether or not they really give one ease, 

I, who have never tried, 

Will not decide ; 
But no two things in union go like these — 
Yiz. — Quacks and Pills — save Ducks and Pease. 
Now Mrs. W. was getting sallow, 
Her lilies not of the white kind, but yellow, 
And friends portended was preparing for 

A human Pate Perigord ; 
She was, indeed, so very far from well, 
Her Son, in filial fear, procured a box 
Of those said pellets to resist Bile's shocks, 
And — tho' upon the ear it strangely knocks — 
To save her by a Cockle from a shell ! 
But Mrs. W., just like Macbeth, 
Who very vehemently bids us " throw 
Bark to the Bow-wows," hated physic so, 
It seemed to share '' the bitterness of Death :'' 
Rhubarb — Magnesia — Jalap, and the kind — 
Senna — Steel — Assafoetida, and Squills — 
Powder or Drauo;ht — but least her throat inclined 
To give a course to Boluses or Pills ; 
No — not to save her life, in lung or lobe, 



COCKLE VS. CACKLE. '^7 

For all her lights's or all her liver's sake, 
Would her convulsive thorax undertake, 
Only one little uncelestial globe ! 

^Tis not to wonder at, in such a case, 
If she put by the pill-box in a place 
For linen rather than for drugs intended — 
Yet for the credit of the pills let 's say 

After they thus were stowed away, 

Some of the linen mended ; 
But Mrs. W. by disease's dint, 
Kept getting still more yellow in her tint, 
When lo ! her second son, like elder brother, 
Marking the hue on the parental gills, 
Brought a new charge of Anti-tumeric Pills, 
To bleach the jaundiced visage of his Mother — 
Who took them — in her cupboard — like the other. 

" Deeper and deeper, still," of course. 
The fatal color daily grew in force ; 
Till daughter W., newly come from Rome, 
Acting the self-same filial, pilial, part, 
To cure Mama, another dose brought home 
Of Cockles ; — not the Cockles of her heart ! 
These going where the others went before, 
Of course she had a very pretty store ; 
And then — some hue of health her cheek adornuig, 
The Medicine so good must be, 
They brought her dose on dose, which she 
Gave to the up-stairs cupboard, "night and morning." 
Till wanting room at last, for other stocks, 
Out of the window one fine day she pitched 
The piihige of each box, and quite enriched 
The feed of Mr. Burrell's hens and cocks — 

VOL. II. 23 



352 



COCKLE VS. CACKLE. 

A little Barber of a by-gone day, 
Over the way, 
Whose stock in trade, to keep the least of shops, 
Was one great head of Kemble — that is, John, 
Staring in plaster, with a Brutus on, 
And twenty little Bantam fowls — with crops. 

Little Dame W. thought when through the sash 

She gave the physic wings, 

To find the very things 
So good for bile, so bad for chicken rash, 
For thoughtless cock, and unreflecting pullet ! 
But while they gathered up the nauseous nubbles, 
Each pecked itself into a peck of troubles, 
And brought the hand of Death upon its gullet. 
They might as well have addled been, or ratted, 
For lono; before the nio-ht — ah, woe betide 
The Pills ! — each suicidal Bantam died 
Unfatted ! 

Think of poor Burrel's shock, 
Of Nature's debt to see his hens all payers, 
And laid in death as Everlasting Layers, 
With Bantam's small Ex-Emperor, the Cock. 
In ruffled plumage and funereal hackle. 
Giving, undone by Cockle, a last Cackle ! 
To see as stiff as stone his unlive stock, 
It really was enough to move his block. 
Down on the floor he dashed, with horror big, 
Mr. Bell's third wife's mother's coachman's wig; 
And with a tragic stare like his own Kemble, 
Burst out with natural emphasis enough, 

And voice that grief made tremble, 
Into that very speech of sad Macduff — 



COCKLE VS. CACKLE. l357 

'' What! — all mj pretty cliickens and their dam, 

At one fell swoop ! — 

Just when I "d bought a coop 
To see the poor lamented creatures cram !" 

After a little of this mood, 

And brooding over the departed brood, 

With razor he began to ope each craw, 

Already turning black, as black as coals ; 

When lo ! the undigested cause he saw — 
" Pisoned by goles !" 

To Mrs. W.'s luck a contradiction, 
Her window still stood open to conviction ; 
And by short course of circumstantial labor, 
He fixed the guilt upon his adverse neighbor ; — 
Lord ! how he railed at her : declaring now, 
He 'd bring an action ere next Term of. Hilary, 
Then, in another moment, swore a vow. 
He 'd make her do pill-penance in the pillory ! 
She, meanwhile distant from the dimmest dream 
Of combating with guilt, yard-arm or arm-yard, 
Lapped in a paradise of tea and cream ; 
When up ran Betty with a dismal scream — 
'^ Here 's Mr. Burrell, ma'am, with all his farm-yard !'' 
Straight in he came, unbowing and unbending, 
With all the warmth that iron and a barber 
Can harbor ; 
To dress the head and front of her offending, 
The fuming phial of his wrath uncorking ; 
In short, he made her pay him altogether. 
In hard cash, very hard, for ev'ry feather. 
Charging of course, each Bantam as a Dorking ; 
Nothing could move him, not^"^^ make him supplej 



352 



ON A NATIVE SINGER. 

So the sad dame unpocketing her loss, 

Had nothing left but to sit hands across, 

And see her poultry " going down ten couple." 

Now birds by poison slain, 

As venomed dart from Indian's hollow cane, 

Are edible; and Mrs. W.'s thrift — 

She had a thrifty vein — 
Destined one pair for supper to make shift — 
Supper as usual at the hour of ten : 
But ten o'clock arrived and quickly passed, 
Eleven — twelve — and one o'clock at last, 
Without a sign of supper even then ! 
At length, the speed of cookery to quicken, 
Betty was called, and wdth reluctant feet. 

Came up at a white heat — 
' ' Well, never I see chicken like them chicken ! 
My saucepans, they have been a pretty Avhile in 'em I 
Enough to stew them, if it comes to that, 
To flesh and bones, and perfect rags ; but drat 
Those Anti-biling Pills ! there is no bile in 'em V 



ON A NATIVE SINGER. 

AFTER HEARING MISS ADELAIDE KEMBLE. 

As sweet as the Bird that by calm Bendemeer, 
Pours such rich modulations of tone — 

As potent, as tender, as brilliant, as clear — 
Still her voice has a charm of its OAvn. 

For lo ! like the skylark, when after its song 
It drops down to its nest from above, 

She reminds us her home and her music belong 
To the very same soil that we love. 



THE UNDYING ONE. 357 

THE UNDYING ONE. 

"He shall not die." — Unclk Tobt. 

Of all the verses, grave or gay, 

That ever wiled an hour, 
I never knew a mingled lay 

At once so sweet and sour 
As that by Ladye Norton spun, 
And christened "The Undying One." 

I *m very certain that she drew 

A portrait, when she penned 
That picture of a perfect Jew, 

Whose days will never end : 
I 'm sure it means my Uncle- Lunn, 
For he is an Undying One. 

These twenty years he 's oeen the same 

And may be twenty more ; 
But Memory's Pleasures only claim 

His features for a score ; 
Yet in that time the change is none — 
The image of th' Undying One ! 

They say our climate's damp and cold, 

And luno;s are tender thino;s ; 
My uncle's much abroad and old, 

But when " King Cole" he sings, 
A Stentor's voice, enough to stun, 
Declares him an Undying One. 

Others have died from needle-pricks. 
And very slender blows ; 



do'i THE UNDYING ONE. 

From accidental slips or kicks, 

Or bleeding at the nose ; 
Or choked bj grape-stone, or a bun — 
But he is the Undying One ! 

A soldier once, he once endured 

A bullet in the breast — 
It might have killed — but only cured 

An asthma in the chest ; 
He was not to be slain with gun, 
For he is the Undying One. 

In water once too long he dived. 

And all supposed him beat, 
He seemed so cold — but he revived 

To have another heat. 
Just when we -thought his race was run, 
And came in fresh — th' Undying One ! 

To look at Meux's once he went, 

And tumbled in the vat — 
And greater Jobs their lives have spent 

In lesser boils than that — 
He left the beer quite underdone, 
No bier to the Undying One ! 

He 's been from strangulation black, 

From bile, of yellow hue, 
Scarlet from fever's hot attack. 

From cholera morbus blue ; 
Yet with these dyes — to use a pun — 
He still is the Undymg One. 

He rolls in wealth, yet has no wife 
His Three per Cents, to share ; 



A CUSTOM-HOUSE BREEZE. 359 

He never married in his life, 

Or flirted with the fair ; 
The sex he made a point to shun, 
For beauty an Undying One. 

To judge him by the present signs. 

The future by the past, 
So quick he lives, so slow declines, 

The Last Man won't be last, 
But buried underneath a ton 
Of mould by the Undying One ! 

Next Friday week, his birth-day boast, 

His ninetieth year he spends, 
And I shall have his health to toast 

Amongst expectant friends, 
And wish — it really sounds like fun — 
Long life to the Undying One ! 



A CUSTOM-HOUSE BREEZE. 

One day — no matter for the month or year, 

A Calais packet, just come over, 
And safely moored within her pier, 

Began to land her passengers at Dover ; 
All glad to end a voyage long and rough, 
And during which 
Through roll and pitch, 
The Ocean-King had sicA'ophants enough ! 

Away, as fast as they could walk or run, 
Eager for steady rooms and quiet meals, 
With bundles, bags, and boxes at their heels, 

Away the passengers all went, but one, 



360 A CUSTOM-HOUSE BREEZE. 

A female, who from some mysterious check, 
Still lingered on the steamer's deck, 
As if she did not care for land a tittle, 
Eor horizontal rooms, and cleanly victual — 
Or nervously afraid to put 
Her foot 
Into an Isle described as ^' tight and little." 

In vain commissioner and touter, 
Porter and waiter thronged about her; 
Boring, as such officials only bore — 

In spite of rope and barrow, knot, and truck, 
Of plank and ladder, there she stuck, 
She couldn't, no she wouldn't go on shore. 

'' But, ma'am," the steward interfered, 
" The wessel must be cleared. 
You musn't stay aboard, ma'am, no one don't! 
It 's quite agin the orders so to do — 
And all the passengers is gone but you." 
Says she, " I can not go ashore, and won't I" 
" You ought to !" 
"But I can't!" 
" You must!" 
" I shan't !" ' 

At last, attracted by the racket 
'Twixt gown and jacket, 
The captain came himself, and, cap in hand, 
Begged very civilly to understand 

Wherefore the lady could not leave the packet. 

''Why then," the lady whispered with a shiver, 
That made the accents quiver, 



PAIN IN A PLEASURE-BOAT. 361 

" I 've got some foreign silks about me pinned, 
In short so many things, all contraband. 
To tell the truth I am afraid to land, 

In such a searching wind !" 



PAIN IN A PLEASURE-BOAT. 

A SEA ECLOGUE. 

" I apprehend you !" — School of Eefobm. 

BOATMAN. 

Shove off there ! — ship the rudder, Bill — cast off — she 's 
under weigh ! 

MRS. F. 

She 's under what ? — I hope she 's not ! good gracious, what 
a spray ! 

BOATMAN. 

Kun out the jib, and rig the boom ! keep clear of those two 
brigs ! 

MRS. F. 
I hope they don't intend some joke by running of their rigs! 

BOATMAN. 

Bill, shift them bags of ballast aft — she 's rather out of trim! 

MRS. F. 

Great bags of stones ! they 're pretty things to help a boat 
to swim 1 

BOATMAN. 

The wind is fresh — if she don't scud, it 's not the breeze'a 
fault ! 

MRS. F. 

Wind fresh, indeed, I never felt the air so full of salt ! 



362 PAIN IN A PLEASURE-BOAT. 

BOATMAN. 

That Schooner, Bill, harn't left the roads, with oranges and 

nuts ! 

MRS. r. 
If seas have roads, they 're very rough — I never felt such 

ruts! 

BOATMAN. 

It's neap, ye see, she 's heavy lade, and could n't pass the 

bar. 

MRS. F. 
The bar ! what ! roads with turnpikes too ? I wonder where 

they are ! 

BOATMAN. 

Ho ! brigh ahoy ! hard up I hard up ! that lubber cannot 
steer ! 

MRS. F. 

Yes, yes — hard up upon a rock ! I know some danger 's 

near ! 
Lord, there 's a wave ! it 's coming in ! and roaring like a 

bull ! 

BOATMAN. 

Nothing, Ma'am, but a little slop ! go large. Bill ! keep her 
full! 

MRS. F. 

What, keep her full ! what daring work ! when full, she 
must do down ! 

BOATMAN. 

Why, Bill, it lulls ! ease oiF a bit — it 's coming off the town ! 
Steady your helm! we'll clear the Pint! lay right for 
yonder pink ! 

MRS. F. 

Be steady — well, I hope they can ! but they 've got a pint 
of drink ! 



PAIN IN A PLEASURE-BOAT, 363 

BOATMAN. 

Bill, give that sheet another haul — she '11 fetch it up this 

reach. 

MRS. r. 
I 'm getting rather pale, I know, and they see it by that 

speech ! 
I wonder what it is, now, but —I never felt so queer ! 

BOATMAN. 

Bill, mind your luff — why Bill, I say, she 's yawing — keep 

her near ! 

MRS. F. 
Keep near ! we 're going further off; the land 's behind our 

backs. 

BOATMAN. 

Be easy, Ma'am, it 's all correct, that 's only 'cause we 

tacks : 
We shall have to beat about a bit — Bill, keep her out to 

sea. 

MRS. F. 

Beat who about? keep who at sea? — how black they look 
at me ! 

BOATMAN. 

It 's veering round — I knew it would ! off with her head ! 
stand by ! 

MRS. F. 

Off with her head ! whose ? where ? with what ! — an axe 1 
seem to spy ! 

BOATMAN. 

She can't not keep her own, you see ; we shall have to pull 

her in ! 

MRS. F. 
They '11 drown me, and take all I have ! my life 's not worth 
a pin ! 



364 QUAKER SONNET. 

BOATMAN. 

Look out, you know, be ready, Bill — ^just when she takes 
the sand I 

MRS. F. 

The sand — Lord ! to stop mj mouth ! how every thing is 
planned ! 

BOATMAN. 

The handspike, Bill — quick, bear a hand ! now Ma'am, just 

step ashore ! 

MRS. F. 
What ! an't I going to be killed — and weltered in my gore? 
NYell, Heaven be praised ! but I '11 not go a sailing any 

more ! 



QUAKER SONNET. 

A GENUINE BROWN STUDY AFTER NATURE, BY R, M. 

How sweet thus clad, in Autumn's mellow Tone, 
With serious Eye, the russet Scene to view ! 
No Verdure decks the Forest, save alone 
The sad green Holly, and the olive Yew. 
The Skies, no longer of a garish Blue, 
Subdued to Dove-like Tints, and soft as Wool, 
Reflected show their slaty Shades anew 
Li the drab Waters of the clayey Pool. 
Meanwhile yon Cottage Maiden wends to School, 
In Garb of Ciiocolate so neatly drest, 
And Bonnet puce, fit object for the Tool, 
And chastened Pigments, of our Brother West ; 
Yea, all is silent, sober, calm, and cool. 
Save gaudy Robin with his crimson Breast 



I 



^ 



LITERARY AND LITERAL, 365 



LITERARY AND LITERAL. 

The March of Mind upon its mighty stilts, 
(A spirit by no means to fiisten mocks on, ) 
In travelling through Berks, Beds, Notts, and Wilts, 

Hants— Bucks, Herts, Oxon, 
Got up a thing our ancestors ne'er thought on, 
A thing that, only in our proper youth, 
We should have chuckled at — in sober truth, 
A Conversazione at Hog's Norton ! 

A place whose native dialect, somehow, 
Has always by an adage been affronted, 
And that it is all gutturals, is now 
Taken for grunted. 

Conceive the snoring of a greedy swine, 
The slobbering of a hungry Ursine Sloth— 
If you have ever heard such creature dine — 
And— for Hog's Norton, make a mix of both !— • 

shades of Shakspeare ! Chaucer ! Spenser ! 

Milton ! Pope ! Gray ! Warton ! 
Coleman ! Kenny ! Planche ! Poole ! Peake ! 

Pocock ! Reynolds ! Morton ! 
Grey ! Peel ! Sadler ! Wilberforce I Burdett ! 

Hume ! Wilmot ! Horton ! 
Think of your prose and verse, and worse — delivered in 
Hog's Norton !— 

The founder of Hog's Norton Athenseum 

Framed her society 

With some variety 
From Mr. Roscoe's Liverpool museum ; 



366 LITERARY AND LITERAL. 

Not a mere pic-nic for the mind's repast, 
But tempting to the solid knife-and-forker, 
It held its sessions in a house that last 
Had killed a porker. 

It chanced one Friday, 
One Farmer Grajley stuck a very big hog, 
A perfect Gog or Magog of a pig-hog, 

Which made of course a literary high day 

Not that our Farmer was a man to go 

With literary tastes — so far from suiting 'em. 

When he heard mention of Professor Crowe^ 

Or Lalla-i?6ioM, he always was for shootuig 'em ! 

In fact in letters he was quite a log, 

With him great Bacon 

Was literally taken, 
And Hogg — the Poet — nothing but a Hog ! 
As to all others on the list of Fame, 
Although they were discussed and mentioned daily, 
He only recognized one classic name, 
And thought that she had hung herself — Miss BaiUie I 

To balance this, our Farmer's only daughter 
Had a great taste for the Castalian water — 
A Wordsworth worshipper — a Southey wooer — 
(Though men that deal in water-color cakes 
May disbelieve the fact — yet nothing 's truer) 

She got the bbier 
The more she dipped and dabbled in the Lakes. 
The secret truth is, Hope, the old deceiver, 
At future Authorship was apt to hint. 
Producing what some call the Type-us Fever, 
Which means a burning to be seen in print. 



I 



LITERARY AND LITERAL. 36' 

Of learning's laurels — Miss Joanna Baillie — 
Of Mrs. Hemans — Mrs. Wilson — daily 
Dreamt Anne Priscilla Isabella Grayley ; 
And Fancy hinting that she had the better 
Of L.E.L. by one initial letter, 
She thought the world would quite enraptured see 

"Love Lays and Lyrics 

BY 

A. P. L G." 

Accordingly, with very great propriety, 
She joined the H. N. B., and double S., 
That is — Hog's Norton Blue Stocking Society ; 
And saving when her Pa his pigs prohibited, 

Contributed 
Her pork and poetry towards the mess. 

This feast, we said, one Friday was the case. 
When Farmer Grayley — from Macbeth to quote — 
Screwing his courage to tlie " sticking-place, " 
Stuck a large knife into a grunter's throat : — 
A kind of murder that the law's rebuke 
Seldom condemns by shake of its peruke, 
Showing the little sympathy of big-ivigs 
With pig-wigs ! 

The swine — poor wretch ! — with nobody to speak for it, 
And beg its life, resolved to liave a squeak for it ; 
So — like the fabled swan — died singing out, 
And, thus, there issued from the farmer's yard 
A note that notified without a card, 
An invitation to the evenino; rout. 



368 LITERARY A^^D LITERAL. 

And when the time came duly — " At the close of 
The day," as Beattie has it, " when the ham — '^ 
Bacon, and pork were ready to dispose of, 
And pettitoes and chit' lings too, to cram — 
Walked in the H. N. B. and double S.'s, 
All in appropriate and swinish dresses, 
For lo ! it is a fact, and not a joke, 
Although the Muse might fairly jest upon it. 
They came — each " Pig-faced Lady," in that bonnet 

We call a j)oke. 
The Members all assembled thus, a rare woman 
At pork and poetry was chosen chalrv'oman ; — 
In fact, the bluest of the Blues, Miss Ikey, 
Whose whole pronunciation was so piggy, 
She always named the authoress of " Psyche^^ — 

As Mrs. Tiggey ! 

And now arose a question of some moment — 

What author for a lecture was the richer, 

Bacon or Hoo-o; ? there were no votes for Beaumont, 

But some for Flitcher ; 
While others, with a more sagacious reasoning, 

Proposed another work, 

And thought their pork 
Would prove more relish ing from T homson' s Season-ing ! 
But, practised in Shakspearian readings daily — 
! Miss Macaulay ! Shakspeare at Hog's Norton ! — 
Miss Anne Priscilla Isabella Gray ley 
Selected hwi that evening to snort on. 
In short, to make our story not a big tale. 

Just fancy her exerting 

Her talents, and converting 
The Winter's Talc to something like a pig-tale ! 



J 



I 'M NOT A SINGLE MAN. 369 

Her sister auditory, 
All sitting round, with grave and learned faces, 

Were very plauditorj, 
Of course, and clapped lier at the proper places ; 
Till fanned at once by fortune and the Muse, 
She thought herself the blessedest of Blues. 
But Happiness, alas ! has blights of ill. 
And Pleasure's bubbles in the air explode ; — 
There is no travelling through life but still 
The heart will meet Avith breakers on the road ! 

With that peculiar voice 
Heard only from Hog's Norton throats and noses, 
Miss G., with Perdita, was making choice 
Of buds and blossoms for her summer posies, 
When coming to that Ime, where Proserpine 
Lets fall her flowers from the wain of Dis ; 

Imagine this — 
Up rose on his hind legs old Farmer Gray ley, 
Grunting this question for the club's digestion, 
" Do Diss Wagon go from tLe Ould Baaley ?" 



I'M NOT A SINGLE MAN. 

"Double, single, aiul the rub." — Hoyle. 
" This, this is Solitude." — Bykon. 

Well, I confess, I did not guess 

A simple marriage vow 
Would make me find all womenkind 

Such unkind women now ! 
They need not, sure, as distant be 

As Java or Japan — 
Yet every Miss reminds me this — - 

I 'm not a single man ! 



VOL. II. 24 



370 I'm not a single man. 

Once the J made choice of my bass voice 

To share in each duett ; 
So well I danced, I somehow chanced 

To stand in every set : 
They now declare I cannot sing, 

And dance on Bruin's plan ; 
Me draw I — me paint I — me anything! — 

I "m not a single man ! 

Once I was asked advice, and tasked 

What works to buy or not, 
And ' ' would I read that passage out 

I so admired in Scott ?'^ 
They then could bear to hear one read ; 

But if I now began, 
How they would snub, "My pretty page," 

I 'm not a single man ! 

One used to stitch a collar then, 

Another hemmed a frill ; 
I had more purses netted then 

Than I could hope to fill. 
I once could get a button on. 

But now I never can — 
My buttons then were Bachelor's — 

I 'm not a single man ! 

Oh how they hated politics 

Thrust on me by papa : 
But now my chat — they all leave that 

To entertain mama. 
Mama, who praises her own self, 

Instead of Jane or Ann, 
And lays ' ' her girls' ' upon the shelf — 

I 'm not a single man ! 



I 'm not a single man. 871 

Ah me, how strange it is the change, 

In parlor and in hall, 
Thej treat me so, if I but go 

To make a morning call. 
If thej had hair in papers once, 

Bolt up the stairs they ran ; 
They now sit still in dishabille — - 

I "m not a single man ! 

Miss Mary Bond was once so fond 

Of Romans and of Greeks ; 
She daily sought my cabinet 

To study my antiques. 
Well, now she doesn't care a dump 

For ancient pot or pan, 
Her taste at once is modernized — 

I *m not a single man 1 

My spouse is fond of homely life, 

And all that sort of thing ; 
I go to balls without my wife, 

And never wear a ring : 
And yet each Miss to whom I come, 

As strange as Genghis Khan, 
Knows by some sign, I can't divine — 

I 'm not a single man ! 

Go where I will, I but intrude, 

I "m left in crowded rooms, 
Like Zimmerman on Solitude, 

Or Hervey at his Tombs. 
From head to heel, they make me feel, 

Of quite another clan ; 
Compelled to own, though left alone, 

I 'm not a single man ! 



372 I'm not a single man. 

Miss Towne the toast, though she can boast 

A nose of Roman line, 
Will turn up even that in scorn 

Of compliments of mine : 
She should have seen that I have been 

Her sex's partisan, 
And reallj married all I could — 

I 'm not a single man ! 

'Tis hard to see how others fare, 

Whilst I rejected stand — 
Will no one take my arm because 

They cannot have my hand? 
Miss Parry, that for some would go 

A trip to Hindostan, 
With me doii"t care to mount a stair — 

I 'm not a single man ! 

Some change, of course, should be in force, 

But, surely, not so much — 
There mnj be hands I may not squeeze, 

But must I never touch ? — 
Must I forbear to hand a chair, 

And not pick up a fan ? 
But I have been myself picked up-^ 

I 'm not a single man ! 

Others may hint a lady's tint 

Is purest red and white — 
May say her eyes are like the skies^ 

So very blue and bright — 
/ must not say that she has eyes^ 

Or if I so began, 
I have my fears about my ears — - 

I 'm not a single man ! 



TO C. DICKEInS, ESQ. 873 

I must confess I did not guess 

A simple marriage vow, 
Would make me find all Avomenkind 

Such unkind women now ; — 
I might be hashed to death, or smashed, 

By Mr. Pickford's van, 
Without, I fear, a single tear — 

I 'm not a single man ! 



TO C. DICKENS, ESQ., 

ox HIS DEPARTURE FOR AMERICA. 

Pshaw ! away with leaf and berry, 

And the sober-sided cup ! 
Bring a goblet, and bright sherry, 

And a bumper fill me up ! 
Though a pledge I had to shiver. 

And the longest ever was ! 
Ere his vessel leaves our river, 

I would drink a health to Boz I 

Here 's success to all his antics. 

Since it pleases him to roam. 
And to paddle o'er Atlantics, 

After such a sale at home ! 
May he shun all rocks whatever. 

And each shallow sand that lurks, 
And his jjassage be as clever 

As the best among his works. 



374 BLANK VERSE IN EHYME. 

A PLAN FOR 
WRITING BLANK VERSE IN RHYME. 

IN A LETTER TO THE EDITOR. 

Respected Sir, — In a morning paper justly celebrated 
for the acuteness of its reporters, and their almost prophetic 
insight into character and motives — the Rhodian length of 
their leaps towards results, and the magnitude of their in- 
ferences, beyond the drawing of ]\Ieux's dray-horses — there 
appeared, a few days since, the following paragraph: 

" Mansion House. Yesterday, a tall, emaciated being, in 
a brown coat, indicating his age to be about forty-five, and 
the raggedness of which gave a great air of mental ingenuity 
and intelligence to his countenance, was introduced by the 
ofiicers to the Lord Mayor. It was evident, from his pre- 
liminary bow, that he had made some discoveries in the art 
of poetry, which he wished to lay before his Lordship, but 
the Lord Mayor perceiving by his accent that he had al- 
ready submitted his project to several of the leading Pub- 
lishers, referred him back to the same jurisdiction, and the 
unfortunate Votary of the ]\Iuses withdrew, declaring by 
another bow, that he should offer his plan to the Editor of 
the Comic Annual." 

The unfortunate above referred to. Sir, is myself, and 
with regard to the Muses, indeed a votary, though not a 
<£10 one, if the qualification depends on my pocket — but for 
the idea of addressing myself to the editor of the Com,ic 
Annual, I am indebted solely to the assumption of the gen- 
tlemen of the Press. That I have made a discovery is true, 
in common with Hervey, and Herschell, and Galileo, and 
Roger Bacon, or rather, I should say, with Columbus — my 



BLANK VERSE IX RHYME. 375 

invention concerning a whole hemisphere, r.3 it were, in the 
world of poetry — in short, the whole continent of blank 
verse. To an immense number of readers this literary 
land has been hitherto a complete terra incognita^ and from 
one sole reason — the want of that harmony which makes the 
close of one line chime w^ith the end of another. They have 
no relish for numbers that turn up blank, and wonder ac- 
cordingly at the epithet of " Prize" prefixed to Poems of the 
kind whicli emanate in — I was going to say from — the Uni- 
versity of Oxford. Thus many very worthy members of 
society are unable to appreciate the Paradise Lost, the Task, 
the Chase, or the Seasons — the Winter especially — without 
rhyme. Others, again, can read the Poems in question, but 
with a limited enjoyment ; as certain persons can admire 
the architectural beauties of Salisbury steeple, but would 
like it better with a rins; of bells. For either of these tastes 
my discovery will provide, without affronting the palate of 
any other ; for although the lover of rhyme will find in it a 
prodigality hitherto unknown, the heroic character of blank 
verse will not suffer in the least, but each line will "do as 
it likes with its own," and sound as independently of the 
next as, ''milk-maid," and "water-carrier." I have the 
honor to subjoin a specimen — and if, through your publicity, 
Mr. Murray should be induced to make me an offer for an 
Edition of Paradise Lost on this principle, for the Family 
Library, it will be an eternal obligation on, 

Respected Sir, your most obliged, and humble servant, 

.ji, ^ ji, ^ ^ jt ^ 

-TV "T^ -^ TV- •TV' T^ TV 

A NOCTURNAL SKETCH. 

Even is come ; and from the dark Park, hark. 
The signal of the setting sun — one gun ! 
And six is sounding from the cliime. prime time 
To go and see the Drury-Lane Dane slain — 



376 BLANK VERSE IN RHYME. 

Or hear Othello's jealous doubt spout out — 
Or Macbeth raving at that shade-made blade, 
Denying to his frantic clutch much touch ; — 
Or else to see Ducrow with wide stride ride 
Four horses as no other man can span ; 
Or in the small Olympic Pitt, sit split 
Laughing at Listen, while you quiz his phiz. 

Anon Night comes, and with her wings brings things 
Such as, with his poetic tongue. Young sung ; 
The gas up-blazes with its bright white light, 
And paralytic watchmen prowl, howl, growl. 
About the streets and take up Pall- Mai Sal, 
Who, hasting to her nightly jobs, robs fobs. 

Now thieves to enter for your cash, smash, crash, 
Past drowsy Charley, in a deep sleep, creep, 
But frightened by Policeman B. 3, flee, 
And while they 're going, whisper low, *' No go !" 

Now puss, while folks are in their beds, treads leads. 
And sleepers waking, grumble — •' Drat that cat I" 
Who in the gutter caterwauls, squalls, mauls 
Some feline foe, and screams in shrill ill-will. 

Now Bulls of Bashan, of a prize size, rise 
In childish dreams, and with a roar gore poor 
Georgy, or Charley, or Billy, willy-nilly ; — 
But Nursemaid in a nightmare rest, chest-pressed, 
Dreameth of one of her old flames, James Games, 
And that she hears — what faith is man's — Anns banns 
And his, from Reverend Mr. Rice, twice, thrice ; 
White ribbons flourish, and a stout shout out. 
That upward goes, shows Rose knows those bows' woes ! 



UP THE RHINE. 377 

UP THE RHINE. 

WHAT MR. GRUNDY SAYS OP THE NATITES. 

Ye Toui'ists and Travellers, bound to the Rhine, 



Provided with passport, that requisite docket, 
First listen to one little whisper of mine — 

Take care of jour pocket ! — take care of your pocket ! 

Don't wash or be shaved — go like hairj wild men, 

Play dominoes, smoke, wear a cap, and smock-frock it, 

But if you speak English, or look it, why then 

Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket ! 

You '11 sleep at great inns, in the smallest of beds 
Fmd charges as apt to mount up as a rocket. 

With thirty per cent, as a tax on your heads, 

Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket ! 

You '11 see old Colosrne — not the sweetest of towns — 
Wherever you follow your nose you will shock it ; 

And you '11 pay your three dollars to look at three crowns, 
Take care of your pocket ! - take care of your pocket ! 

You '11 count seven Mountains, and see Roland's Eck, 
Hear legends veracious as any by Crockett ; 

But oh ! to the tone of romance what a check, 

Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket ! 

Old Castles you '11 see on the vine-covered hill — 
Fine ruins to rivet the eye in its socket — 

Once haunts of Baronial Banditti — and still 

Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket 



378 UP THE RHINE. 

You '11 stop at Coblentz, with its beautiful views, 
But make no long staj with your money to stock it, 

Where Jews are all Germans, and Germans all Jews, 
Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket! 

A Fortress you'll see, which, as people report, 

Can never be captured, save famine should block it — 

Ascend Ehrenbreitstein — but that 's not their ybr/e. 
Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket! 

You '11 see an old man who '11 let off an old gun. 
And Lurley, with her hurly-burly, will mock it ; 

But think that the words of the echo thus run, 

Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket ! 

You '11 gaze on the Rheingau, the soil of the Vine ! 

Of course you will freely Moselle it and Hock it — 
P'raps purchase some pieces of Humbugheim wine — 

Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket! 

Perchance you will take a frisk off to the Baths — 
Where some to their heads hold a pistol and cock it ; 

But still mind the warning, wherever your paths, 

Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket ! 

And Friendships you '11 swear most eternal of pacts, 
Change rings, and give hair to be put in a locket ; 

But still, in the most sentimental of acts, 

Take care of your pocket ! — ;take care of your pocket ! 

In short, if you visit that stream or its shore. 
Still keep at your elbow one caution to knock it, 

And where Schinderhannes was Bobber of yore, 

Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket I 



LOVE LANGUAGE OF A MERRY YOUNG SOLDIER. 379 



LOVE LANGUAGE OF A MERRY YOUNG SOLDIER. 

FROM THE GERMAN. 

"Ach, Gretchen, mein tilubchen." 

Gretel, my Dove, my heart's Trumpet, 
My Cannon, my Big Drum, and also my Musket, 
hear me, my mild little Dove, 
In your still little room. 

Your portrait, my Gretel, is always on guard, 
Is always attentive to Love's parole and watchword; 
-Your picture is always going the rounds. 
My Gretel, I call at every hour ! 

My heart's Knapsack is always full of you ; 
My looks, they are quartered with you ; 
And when I bite off the top end of a cartridge, 
Then I think that I give you a kiss. 

You alone are my Word of Command and orders. 
Yea, my Right-face, Left-face, Brown Tommy, and wine, 
And at the word of command " Shoulder Arms !" 
Then I think you say " Take me in your arms." 

Your eyes sparkle like a Battery, 
Yea, they wound like Bombs and Grenades ; 
As black as Gunpowder is your hair. 
Your hand as white Parading breeches ! 

Yes, you are the Match and I am the Cannon ; 
Have pity, my love, and give quarter. 
And give the word of command ' ' Wheel round 
Into my heart's Barrack Yard." 



380 ANACREONTIC. 

ANACREONTIC, 

FOR THE NEW YEAR. 

Come, fill up the Bowl, for if ever the glass 

Found a proper excuse or fit season. 
For toasts to be honored, or pledges to pass, 

Sure, this hour brings an exquisite reason : 
For, hark ! the last chime of the dial has ceasedj 

And Old Time, who his leisure to cozen, 
Had finished the months, like the flasks at a feast, 

Is preparing to tap a fresh dozen ! 

Hip ! Hip ! and Hurrah ! 

Then fill, all ye Happy and Free, unto whom 

The past Year has been pleasant and sunny ; 
Its months each as sweet as if made of the bloom 

Of the thyme whence the bee gathers honey — 
Pays ushered by dew-drops, instead of the tears. 

Maybe, Avrung from some wretcheder cousin — 
Then fill, and with gratitude join in the cheers 

That triumphantly hail a fresh dozen ! 

Hip ! Hip ! and Hurrah I 

And ye, who have met wdth Adversity's blast, 

And been bowed to the earth by its fury ; 
To whom the Twelve Months, that have recently passed, 

Were as harsh as a prejudiced jury — 
Still, fill to the future ! and join in our chime. 

The regrets of remembrance to cozen. 
And having obtained a New Trial of Time, 

Shout, in hopes of a kindlier dozen ! 

Hip ! Hip ! and Hurrah 1 



MORE HULLAHBALOO. 381 



MORE HULLAHBALOO. 

" Loud as from numbers without number." — Milton. 

" You may do it extempore, for it 's nothing but roaring." — Qdinob, 

Amongst the great inventions of this age, 

Which every other centurj surpasses. 
Is one — just noAV the rage — 

Called " Singino; for all Classes" — 
That is, for all the British millions, 
And billions, 
And quadrillions. 
Not to name Qid?iilllanSj 
That now, alas ! have no more ear than asses^ 
To learn to warble like the birds in June, 
In time and tune, 
Correct as clocks, and musical as glasses ! 

In fact, a sort of plan. 
Including gentleman as well as yokel, 

Public or private man, 
To call out a militia — only Yocal, 

Instead of Local, 
And not designed for military follies, 

But keeping still within the civil border, 
To form with mouths in open order, 
And sing in volleys. 
Whether this grand Harmonic scheme 
Will ever get beyond a dream. 

And tend to British happiness and glory. 
Maybe no, and maybe yes,. 
Is more than I pretend to guess — 
However, here's my story. 



382 MORE HULLAHBALOO. 

In one of those small, quiet streets, 

Where business retreats 
To shun the daily bustle and the noise 

The shoppy Strand enjoys, 
But Law, Joint Companies, and Life Assurance, 

Find past endurance — 
Li one of those back streets, to Peace so dear, 

The other day, a ragged wiglit. 

Began to sing with all his might, 

'' I have a silent sorroio hereV 
The place was lonely, not a, creature stirred, 
Except some little dingy bird ; 
Or vagrant cur that sniffed along, 
Indifferent to the Son of Song ; 
No truant errand-boy, or doctor's lad, 
No idle Filch, or lounging cad. 

No pots encumbered with diurnal beer, 
No printer's devil with an author's proof, 
Or housemaid on an errand far aloof. 

Lingered the tattered Melodist to hear — • 
Who yet, confound him ! bawled as loud 
As if he had to charm a London crowd, 

Singing beside the public way, 
Accompanied — instead of violin, 
Flute, or piano, chiming in — 

By rumbling cab, and omnibus, and dray, 
A van with iron bars to play staccato^ 

Or engine ohl'igato — 
In short, without one instrument vehicular 
(Not even a truck, to be particular). 

There stood the rogue and roared, 

Unasked and unencored, 
Enough to split the organs called auricular! 



MORE HULLAHBALOO. 383 

Heard in that quiet place, 

Devoted to a still and studious race. 

The noise was quite appalling ! 
To seek a fitting simile and spin it. 

Appropriate to his calling, 
His voice had all Lablache's body in it; 
But oh ! the scientific tone it lacked, 

And was in fact, 
Only a fortj-boatswain power of bawling ! 

'T was said, indeed, for want of vocal noiis^ 

The stage had banished him, when he attempted it, 
For tho' his voice completely filled the house, 
It also emptied it. 
However, there he stood 
Yociferous — a ragged don ! 
And with his iron pipes laid on 

A row to all the neighborhood. 

In vain were sashes closed, e 

And doors against the persevering Stentor, 

Though brick, and glass, and solid oak opposed, 
Th' intruding voice would enter. 

Heedless of ceremonial or decorum. 

Den, office, parlor, study, and sanctorum ; 

Where clients and attorneys, rogues and fools, 

Ladies, and masters who attended schools, 

Clerks, agents, all provided with their tools, 

Were sitting upon sofas, chairs, and stools. 

With shelves, pianos, tables, desks, before 'em — 
How it did bore 'em ! 

Louder, and louder still 
The fellow sang with horrible goodwill, 



g34 MORE HULLAHBALOO. 

Curses both loud and deep, his sole gratuities, 
Trom scribes bewildered making many a flaw. 

In deeds of law 

They had to draw ; 
With dreadful incongruities 
In posting ledgers, making up accounts 

To large amounts, 
Or casting up annuities — 
Stunned by that voice, so loud and hoarse, 
Against whose overwhelming force 
No invoice stood a chance, of course ! 

The Actuary 'pshawed and '' pished," 
And knit his calculating brows, and wished 
The singer " a bad life" — a mental murther! 
The Clerk, resentful of a blot and blander, 
Wished the musician further, 
Poles distant — and no wonder ! 
For Law and Harmony tend far asunder — 
The lady could not keep her temper calm, 
Because the sinner did not sing a psalm — 
The Fiddler in the very same position 
As Hoo;arth's chafed musician 
(Such prints require but cursory reminders) 
Came and made faces at the wretch beneath, 
And wishing for his foe between his teeth, 
(Like all impatient elves 
That spite themselves) 
Ground his own grinders. 

But still with unrelenting note. 

Though not a copper came of it, in verity, 
The horrid fellow with the ragged coat, 
And iron throat, 



MORE HULLAHBALOO. 385 

Heedless of present honor and prosperity, 
Sang like a Poet singing for posterity, - 
In penniless reliance — 
And, sure, the most immortal Man of Rhyme 
Never set Time 
More thoroughly at defiance ! 

From room to room, from floor to floor, 

From Number One to Twenty-four, 

The Nuisance bellowed, till all patience lost, 

Down came Miss Frost, 
Expostulating at her open door — 
" Peace, monster, peace ! 
Where is the New Police ? 
I vow I cannot work, or read, or pray. 

Don't stand there bawling, fellow, don't ! 
You really send my serious thoughts astray, 
Do — there 's a dear good man — do, go away.'^ 
Says he, "I won't !" 

The spinster pulled her door to with a slam, 

That sounded like a wooden d — n, • 

For so some moral people, strickly loth 
To swear in words, however up, 
Will crash a curse in setting down a cup, 

Or through a doorpost vent a banging oath — 

In fact, this sort of physical transgression 
Is really no more difficult to trace 
Than in a given face 
A very bad expression. 

However in she went 
Leaving the subject of her discontent 
To Mr. Jones's Clerk at Number Ten ; 

VOL. If. 25 



386 MORE HULLAHBALOO. 

Who, throwing up the sash, 
With accents rash, 
Thus hailed the most vociferous of men : 
^' Come, come, I say old fellow, stop your chant! 
I cannot write a sentence — no one can't ! 
So just pack up your trumps, 
And stir your stumps — " 
Says he, " I shan't !" 

Down went the sash 
As if devoted to " eternal smash" 
(Another illustration 
Of acted imprecation), 
While close at hand, uncomfortably near, 

The independent voice, so loud and strong, 

And clanging like a gong, 
Roared out again the everlasting song, 
*' I have a silent sorrow here." 

The thing was hard to stand ! 

The Music-master could not stand it — 
But rushed forth with fiddle-stick in hand, 

As savage as a bandit, 
Made up directly to the tattered man. 
And thus in broken sentences began — 
But playing first a prelude of grimaces, 

Twisting his features to the strangest shapes, 
So that to guess his subject from his faces, 

He meant to give a lecture upon apes. 

'' Com — com — I say ! 

You go away ! 
Into two parts my head you split — 
My fiddle cannot hear himself a bit. 

When I do play — 



m 



MORE HULLAHBALOO. 



387 



You have no bis'ness in a place so still ! 
Can you not come another day?" 
Says he—" I will." 

*' No no — you scream and bawl ! 

You must not come at all ! 

You have no rights, by rights, to beg — 

You have not one off leg — 

You ought to work — you have not some complaint — 

You are not cripple in your back or bones — 

Your voice is strons; enouo;h to break some stones — " 



Says he — "It am't. 



?) 



" I say you ought to labor ! 
You are in a young case, 
You have not sixty years upon your face, 

To come and beg your neighbor ! 
And discompose his music with a noise, 
More worse than twenty boys — 
Look what a street it is for quiet ! 
No cart to make a riot. 

No coach, no horses, no postilion, 
If you will sing, I say, it is not just 
To sing so loud." — Says he, " I must ! 

I'm SINGING- FOK THE MILLION!" 



388 ODE TO THE PRINTER'S DEVIL. 



ODE TO THE PRINTER'S DEVIL 

WHO BROUGHT ME A PROOF TO BE CORRECTED, AND WHO FELL ASLEEP 
WHILE IT WAS UNDERGOING CORRECTION: BEING AN ODE FOUNDED 

ON fact! 

" Fallen Cherub !" — Milton's Paradise Lost. 

Oh bright and blessed hour ; — 

The Devil 's asleep ! — I see his little lashes 

Lying in sable o'er his sable cheek ; 

Closed are his wicked little window sashes, 

And tranced is Evil's power ! 

The Avorld seems hushed and dreaming out-a-doors, 

Spirits but speak ; 
And the heart echoes, while the Devil snores. 

Sleep, Baby of the damned ! 

Sleep, when no press of trouble standeth by ! 

Black wanderer amid the wandering, 

How quiet is thine eye ! 
Strange are thy very small pernicious dreams — 
With shades of printers crammed, 
And pica, double pica, on the wing ! 
Or in cold sheets thy sprite perchance is flying 

The world about — 
Dying — and yet, not like the Devil dying — 

Dele^ — the Evil out ! 

Before sweet sleep drew down 

The blinds upon thy Day (|» Martin eyes. 



ODE TO THE PRINTER'S DEVIL. 389 

Thou did'st let slip thj slip of mischief on me, 
With weary, weary sighs ; • 

And then, outworn with demoiiing o'er town, 

Oblivion won thee ! 
Best of compositors ! thou didst compose 
Thy decent little wicked self, and go 
A Devil-cruiser round the shores of sleep — 
I hear thee fathom many a slumber-deep, 

In the waves of woe ; 

Dropping thy lids of lead 

To sound the dead ! 

Heaven forgive me ! I 

Have Avicked schemes about thee, wicked one; 

And in my scheming, sigh 

And stagger under a gigantic thought ; 

" What if I run my pen into thine eye, 

And put thee out ? 

Killing the Devil will be a noble deed, 

A deed to snatch perdition from mankind — 

To make the Methodist's a stingless creed — ■ 

To root out terror from the Brewer's mind — 

And break the bondage which the Printer presses — 

To change the fate of Lawyers — 
Confirm the Parson's holy sinecure — 
Make worthless sin's approaches — 
To justify the bringing up addresses 
To ms, in hackney coaches, 
Erom operative Sawyers!" 



'' To murder thee" — 
Methinks — '' will never harm my precious head"- 
Porwhat can chanco me, v/hen the Devil is dead? 



390 ODE TO THE PRINTER S DEVIL. 

But when I look on thy serene repose, 
H«ar the small Satan dying through thy nose, 
My thoughts become less dangerous and more deep ; 
I can but wish thee everlasting sleep ! 

Sleep free from dreams 
Of type, and mk, and press, and dabbing-ball — 

Sleep free from all 
That Avould make shadowy, devilish slumber darker, 
Sleep free from Mr. Baldwin's Mr. Parker ! 

Oh ! fare thee well ! 
Farewell, black bit of breathing sin ! Farewell, 
Tiny remembrancer of a Printer's Hell ! 

Young thing of darkness, seeming 
A small, poor type of wickedness set up ! 

Full is thy little cup 
Of misery in the waking world ! So dreaming 
Perchance may now undetnonize thy fate 
And bear thee, Black-boy, to a whiter state ! 
Yet mortal evil is, than thme, more high , — 
Thou art vprigfit m sleep : men sleep — and He! 
And from thy lids to me a moral peeps, 
For I correct my errors — while the Devil sleeps! 



ODES AND ADDRESSES 



TO 



GREAT PEOPLE. 



"catching all the oddities, the whimsies, the absurdities, and thk little- 

NESSKS OF conscious GREATNESS BY THE WAY." 

Citizen of f'(<» World. 



ADDRESS. 



The present being the first appearance of this little "Work, some sort of 
Address seems to be called for from the Author, Editor, and Compiler ; and 
we come forward in prose, totally overcome, like a flurried manager in his 
every-day clothes, to solicit public indulgence — protest an indelible feeling 
of reverence — bow, beseech, promise — and " all that." 

To the persons addressed in the Poems nothing need be said, as it would 
be only swelling the book (a custom which we detest), to recapitulate in 
prose what we have said in verse. To those unaddressed an apology is 
due, and to them it is very respectfully offered. Mr. Hunt, for his Per- 
manent Ink, deserves to have his name recorded in his own composition — 
Mr. Colman, the amiable King^s Jester, and Oath-blaster of the modern stage, 
merits a line — Mr. Accum, whose fame is potted — Mr. Bridgman, the maker 
of Patent Safety Coflans — Mr. Kean, the great Luster of the Boxes— Sir 
Humphry Davy, the great Lamplighter of the Pits— Sir WHliam Congreve, 
one of the proprietors of the Portsmouth Rocket— yea, several others call 
for the Muse's approbation ;— but our little volume, like the Adelphi Thea- 
ter, IS easily filled, and those who are disappointed of places now are re- 
quested to wait until the next performance. 

Having said these few words to the unitiated, we leave our Odes and 
Addresses, like Gentlemen of the Green Isle, to hunt their own fortunes; 
and, by a modest assurance, to make their way to the hearts of those to 
whom they are desirous of addressing themselves. 



ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



A SECOND Edition being called for, the Author takes the opportunity of 
expressing his grateful thanks to his Eeaders and Reviewers for the kind 
way in which they have generally received his little book. Many of those 
who have been be- Oded in the following pages have taken the verse-oflfer- 
ings in good part; and the Author has been given to understand that cer- 
tain "Great People," who have been kept "out of situations," have, like 
Bob Acres, looked upon themselves as very ill-used Gentlemen. It is rather 
hard that there should not be room for all the great ; but this httle convey- 
ance — a sort of Hght coach to Fame — like other coveyances, while it ha3 
only four in, labors under the disadvantage of having twelve out. The Pro- 
prietor apprehends he must meet the wants of the Public by starting an 
extra coach; in which case Mr. Colman, (an anxious Licenser, ) and Mr. Hunt, 
(the best maker of speeches and blacking in the City and Liberty of West- 
minster,) shall certainly be hooked for places. To the latter Gentleman the 
Author gratefully acknowledges the compliment of a bottle of his permanent 
mk : it will be, indeed, pleasant to write an Address to Mr. Wilberforce hi 
the hquid of a beautiful jet black, which the author now meditates doing. 
Odes, written in permanent ink, will doubtless stand a chance of runnmg 
a good race with Gray's. 

A few objections have been made to the present Volume, which the Au- 
thor regrets he can not attend to without serious damage to the whole pro- 
duction. The Address to Maria Darlington is said by several ingenious 
and judicious persons to be namby-pamby. This is a sad disappointment 
to the writer, as he was in hopes he had accomplished a bit of the right 
Shenstonian. The verses to the Champion of England are declared urev- 
erent, and those to Dr. Ireland and his Partners in the Stone Trad© ara 



394 ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION. 

held out as an improper interference with sacred things ; these Addresses 
are certainly calumniated: the one was really written as an affectionate 
inquiry after a great and reverend Warrior, now in rural retirement, and 
the other was intended as a kindly advertisement of an exhibition, which, 
although cheaper than the Tower, and nearly as cheap as Mrs. Salmon's 
"Wax- work, the modesty of the proprietors will not permit them sufficiently 
to puflr. 

To the universal objection that the Book is overrun with puns, the 
author can only say he has searched every page without being able to de- 
tect a thing of the kind. He can only promise, therefore, that if any re- 
spectable Reviewer will point the vermin out, they shall be carefully trapped 
and thankfully destroyed. 



PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION, 



From the kindness with which this little volume has been received, the 
Authors have determined upon presenting to the Public " more last Bax- 
terish words ;" and the Reader will be pleased therefore to consider this 
rather as a Preface or Advertisement to the volume to come, than a third 
Address iu prose, explanatory or recommendatory of the present portion 
of the "Work It is against etiquette to introduce one gentleman to 
another tlirice ; and it must be confessed, that if these few sentences were 
to be billeted upon the first volume, the Public might overlook the Odes, 
but would have great reason to complain of the Addresses. 

So many Great Men stand over, hke the correspondents to a periodical, 
that they must be " continued m our next," These are certainly bad 
times for paymg debts; but all persons having any clamis upon the 
Authors, may rest assured, that they will ultimately be paid in full. 

No material alterations have been made in this third Edition — with the 
exception of the introduction of a few new commas, which tlie lovers of 
punctuation will immediately detect and duly appreciate , — and the omis- 
sion of the three puns, which, in the opinion of all friends and reviewers, 
were detrimental to the correct humor of the publication. 



ODES AND ADDRESSES. 



ODE TO MR. GRAHAM. 

THE AERONAUT. 

"Up with me ! — up with me into the sky '" 

Wordsworth — on a La/rk ! 

Dear Graham, whilst the busy crowd, 
The vain, the wealthy, and the proud. 

Their meaner flights pursue, -.^f^-w 

Let us cast off the foolish ties 
That bind us to the earth, and rise 

And take a bird's-eye view! — 

A few more whiffs of my segar 
And then, in Fancy's airy car. 

Have with thee for the skies : — 
How oft this fragrant smoke upcurled 
Hath borne me from this little world, 

And all that in it lies ! — 

Away ! — away ! — the bubble fills — • 
Farewell to earth and all its hills ! — 

We seem to cut the wind ! — 
So high we mount, so swift we go, 
The chimney tops are far below, 

The Eagle's left behind !— 



898 ODE TO MR. GRAHAM. 

Ah me ! my brain begins to swim ! — 
The world is growing rather dim j 

The steeples and the trees — 
My wife is getting very small ! 
I cannot see my babe at all ! — 

The Dollond, if you please ! 

Do, Graham, let me have a quiz, 
Lord ! what a Lilliput it is, 

That little w^orld of Mogg's ! — 
Are those the London Docks ? — that channel, 
The mighty Thames? — a proper kennel 

For that small Isle of Dogs ! — 

What is that seeming tea-urn there ? 
That fairy dome, St. Paul's ! — I swear, 

Wren must have been a Wren ! — 
And that small stripe ? — it cannot be 
The City Road ! — Good lack ! to see 

The little ways of men ! 

Little, indeed ! — my eyeballs ache 
To find a turnpike. — I must take 

Their tolls upon my trust ! — 
And where is mortal labor gone ? 
Look, Graham, for a little stone 

Mac Adamized to dust ! 

Look at the horses ! — less than flies I — 
Oh, what a waste it was of sighs 

To wish to be a Mayor ! 
What is the honor ? — none at all, 
One's honor must be very small 

For such a civic chair ! — 



ODE TO MR. GRAHAM. odd 

And there 's Guildhall ! — 'tis far aloof — 
Methinks, I fancy through the roof 

Its little guardian Gogs, 
Like penny dolls — a tiny show ! — 
Well — I must say they 're ruled below 

By very little logs ! — 

Oh ! Graham, how the upper air 
Alters the standards of compare ; 

One of our silken flags 
Would cover London all about — 
Nay, then — let's even empty out 

Another brace of bags ! 

Now for a glass of bright Champagne 
Above the clouds ! — Come, let us drain 

A bumper as we go ! — 
But hold ! — for God's sake do not cant 
The cork away — unless you want 

To brain your friends below. 

Think ! what a mob of little men 
Are crawling just within our ken, 

Like mites upon a cheese ! — 
Pshaw ! — how the foolish sight rebukes 
Ambitious thoughts ! — can there be Dukes 

Of Gloster such as these ! — 

Oh ! what is glory ? — what is fame ? 
Hark to the little mob's acclaim, 

'T is nothing but a hum ! — 
A few near gnats would trump as loud 
As all the shouting of a crowd 

That has so far to come ! — 



^00 ODE TO MR. GRAHAM. 

Well — they are wise that choose the near, 
A few small buzzards in the ear, 

To organs ages hence 1 — 
Ah me ! how distance touches all ; 
It makes the true look rather small, 

But murders poor pretence. J 

" The world recedes 1 — it disappears ! 
Heaven opens on my eyes — my ears 

With buzzing noises ring !" — 
A fig for Southey's Laureat lore ! — 
What 's Rogers here? — Who cares for Moore 

That hears the Angels sing ! — 



A fio; for earth, and all its minions ! — 
We are above the world's opinions, 

Graham ! we '11 have our own ! — 
Look what a vantage height we've got — 
Now do you think Sir Walter Scott 

Is such a Great Unknown ? 

Speak up ! — or hath he hid his name 
To crawl thro' " subways" unto fame, 

Like Williams of Cornliill? — 
Speak up, my lad ! — when men run small 
We '11 show what 's little in them all, 

Receive it how they will ! — 

Think now of Irving ! — shall he preach 
The princes down — shall he impeach 

The potent and the rich, 
Merely on ethic stilts — and I 
Not moralize at two miles high 

The true didactic pitch ! 



ODE TO MR. GRAHAM. 401 

Come : — what d' ye think of Jeffrey, sir ? 
Is Gifford such a Grulliver 

In Lilliput s Review, 
That like Colossus he should stride 
Certain small brazen inches wide 

For poets to pass through ? 

Look down ! the world is but a spot. 
Now say — Is Blackwood's loio or not, 

For all the Scottish tone? 
It shall not weigh us here — not where 
• The sandy burden's lost in air — 

Our lading — where is 't flown ? 

Now — like you Croly's verse indeed — 
In heaven — where one cannot read 

The "Warren" on a wall ? 
What think you here of that man's fame? 
Tho' Jordan magnified his name, 

To me 'tis very small ! 

And, truly, is there such a spell 
In those three letters, L. E. L., 

To witch a world with song ? 
On clouds the Byron did not sit. 
Yet dared on Shakspeare's head to spit, 

And say the world was wrong ! 

And shall not we? Let 's think aloud ! 
Thus being couched upon a cloud, 

Graham, we '11 have our eyes ! 
We felt the great when we were less, 
But we '11 retort on littleness 

Now we are in the skies. 

VOL. n. 26 



40 ODE TO MR. GRAHAM. 

Graham, Graham ! how I blame 
The bastard blush — the petty shame 

That used to fret me quite — 
The little sores I covered then, 
No sores on earth, nor sorrows when 

The world is out of sight ! 

My name is Tims. — I am the man 
That North's unseen, diminished clan 
So scurvily abused ! 

1 am the very P. A. Z. 

The London Lion's small pin's head 
So often hath refused ! 

Campbell — (you cannot see him here) — 
Hath scorned my Ixiys : — do his appear 

Such great eggs from the sky ? — 
And Longman, and his lengthy Co. 
Long, only, in a little Row, 

Have thrust my poems by ! 

What else ? — I 'm poor, and much beset 
With damned small duns — that is — in debt 

Some grains of golden dust ! • 
But only worth, above, is worth. — 
What 's all the credit of the earth ! 

An inch of cloth on trust ! 

What 's Rothschild here, that wealthy man I 
Nay, worlds of w^ealth? — Oh, if you can 

Spy out — the Golden Ball! 
Sure as we rose, all money sank : 
What 's gold or silver now ? — the Bank 

Is gone — the 'Change and all 1 



ODE TO MR. GRAHAM. 403 

What 's all the ground-rent of the globe ? — 
Oh, Graham, it would worry Job 

To hear its landlords prate ! 
But after this survey, I think 
I '11 ne'er be bullied more, nor shrink 

From men of large estate ! 

And less, still less, will I submit 
To poor mean acres' worth of wit — 

I that have heaven's span — 
I that like Shakspeare's self may dream 
Beyond the very clouds, and seem 

An Universal Man ! 

Mark, Graham, mark those gorgeous crowds ! 
Like Birds of Paradise the clouds 

Are winging on the wind ! 
But what is grander than their range ? 
More lovely than their sun-set change ? — ■ 

The free creative mind ! 

Well ! the Adults' School 's in the air ! 
The greatest men are lessoned there 

As well as the Lessee ! 
Oh could Earth's Ellistons thus small 
Behold the greatest stage of all, 

How humbled they would be ! 



" Oh would some Power the giftie gie 'em, 
To see themselves as others see 'em," 

'T would much abate their fuss! 
If they could thnik that from the skies 
They are as little in our eyes 

As they can think of us I 



404 ODE TO MR. GRAHAM. 

Of US ? are we gone out of sight ? 
Lessened ! diminished ! vanished quite I 

Lost to the tiny town ! 
Beyond the Eagle's ken — the grope 
Of Dolland's longest telescope ! 

Graham ! we 're going down ! 

Ah me ! I 've touched a string that opes 
The airy valve ! — the gas elopes — 

Down goes our bright Balloon ! — 
Farewell the skies ! the clouds ! I smell 
The lower world ! Graham, farewell, ^ 

Man of the silken moon ! 

The earth is close ! the City nears — 
Like a burnt paper it appears. 

Studded with tiny sparks ! 
Methinks I hear the distant rout 
Of coaches rumbling all about — 

We 're close above the Parks ! 

I hear the watchmen on their beats, 
Hawking the hour about the streets. 

Lord ! what a cruel jar 
It is upon the earth to light 1 
Well — there 's the finish of our flight 1 

I 've smoked my last segar ! 



ODE 
TO MR. M'ADAM.^ 

" Let us take to the road !" — Begqak's Opera, 

M'Adam, hail ! 
Hail, Roadian ! hail, Colossus ! who dost stand 
Striding ten thousand turnpikes on the land ! 

Oh universal Leveler ! all hail ! 
To thee, a good, jet stony-hearted man, 

The kindest one, and yet the flintiest going — 
To thee — how much for thy commodious plan, 

Lanark Reformer of the Ruts, is Owing ! 
The Bristol mail 
Gliding o'er ways, hitherto deemed invincible, 

When carrying Patriots now shall never fail 
Those of the most " uashakoi public principle." 
Hail to thee, Scot of Scots ! 

Thou northern light, amid those heavy men I 
Foe to Stonehenge, yet friend to all beside, 
Thou scatterest flints and favors far and wide, 
From palaces to cots ; — 

Dispenser of coagulated good ! 

Distributor of granite and of food ! 
Long may thy fame its even path march on 

E'en when thy sons are dead ! 
Best benefactor ! though thou giv'st a stone 

To those who ask for bread J 



406 ODE TO MR. M'ADAM. 

Thj first great trial in this mighty town 
Was, if I rightly recollect, upon 

That gentle hill which goeth 
Down from " the County*' to the Palace gate, 

And, like a river, thanks to thee, now floweth 
Past the Old Horticultural Society — 
The chemist Cobb's, the house of Howell and James, 
Where ladies play high shawl and satin games — 

A little Hell of lace ! 
And past the Athenaeum, made of late, 

Severs a sweet variety 
Of milliners and booksellers who grace 

AVaterloo Place, 
Making division, the Muse fears and guesses, 
'Twixt Mr. Rivmgton's and Mr. Hessey's. 
Thou stood'st thy trial, Mac ! and shaved the road 
From Barber Beaumont's to the King's abode 
So well, that paviors threw their rammers by, 
Let down their tucked shirt-sleeves, and with a sigh 
Prepared themselves, poor souls, to chip or die ! 

Next, from the palace to the prison, thou 

Didst go, the highway's watchman, to thy beat — 
Preventing though the 7^atlling in the street, 
Yet kicking up a row 
Upon the stones — ah ! truly watchman-like. 
Encouraging thy victims all to strike. 

To further thy own purpose, Adam, daily ; — 
Thou hast smoothed, alas, the path to the Old Bailey 
And to the stony bowers 
Of Newgate, to encourage the approach, 
By caravan or coach — 
Hast strewed the way with flints as soft as flowers. 



^ ODE TO MR. M'ADAM. 40T 

Who shall dispute thy name ! 
Insculpt in stone in every street, 

We soon shall greet 
Thy trodden down, yet all unconquered fame ! 
Where'er we take, even at this time, our way, 
Nought see we, but mankind in open air, 
Hammering thy fame, as Chantrey would not dare ; — 

And with a patient care 
Chipping thy immortality all day ! 
Demosthenes, of old — that rare old man — 
Prophetically foUmved^ Mac ! thy plan : — 

For he, we know, 

(History says so,) 
Put pebbles in his mouth when he would speak 

The smoothest Greek ! 

It is " impossible, and cannot be," 
But that thy genius hath. 
Besides the turnpike, many another path 

Trod, to arrive at popularity, 
O'er Pegasus, perchance, thou hast thrown a thigh, 
Nor ridden a roadster only ; mighty Mac ! 
And 'faith I 'd swear, when on that winged hack, 
Thou hast observed the highways in the sky ! 
Is the path up Parnassus rough and steep, 

And '' hard to climb," as Dr. B. would say? 
Dost think it best for Sons of Song to keep 

The noiseless tenor of their way ? (see Gray.) 
What line of road should poets take to brmg 

Themselves unto those waters, loved the first ! — 
Those waters which can wet a man to sing ! 

Which, like thy fame, " from granite basins burst. 

Leap into life, and, sparkling, woo the thirst?" 



408 ODE TO MR. M'ADAM. 

That thou 'rt a proser, even thy birth-place might 
Vouchsafe ; — and Mr. Cadell may, God wot, 
Have paid thee many a pound for many a blot — 
Cadell 's a wayward wight ! 
Although no Walter, still thou art a Scot, 
And I can throw, I think, a little light 
Upon some works thou hast written for the town — 
And published, like a Lilliput Unknown i 

"Highways and Byeways," is thy book, no doubt, 
(One whole edition 's out,) 
And next, for it is fair 
That Fame, 
Seeing her children, should confess she had 'em : — 
" Some Passages from the life of Adam Blair" — 

(Blair is a Scottish name,) 
What are they, but thy own good roads, M'Adam? 

! indefatigable laborer 
In the paths of men ! when thou shalt die, 't will be 
A mark of thy surpassing industry. 

That of the monument, which men shall rear 
Over thy most inestimable bone. 
Thou didst thy very self lay the first stone ! — 
Of a right ancient line thou comest — through 
Each crook and turn we trace the unbroken clue, 
Until we see thy sire before our eyes — 
Rolling his gravel walks in Paradise 1 
But he, our great Mac Parent, erred, and ne'er 

Have our walks since been fair ! 
Yet Time, who, like the merchant, lives on 'Change, 
For ever varying, through his varying range, 

Time maketh all things even ! 
In this strange world, turning beneath high heaven ! 



ODE TO MR. M'ADAM. 40P 

He hath redeemed the Adams, and contrived — 

(How are Time's wonders hived !) 
In pity to mankind and to befriend 'em — 
(Time is above all praise) 
That he, who first did make our evil ways, 
Reborn in Scotland, should be first to mend 'em I 



A FRIENDLY ADDRESS 

TO MRS. FRY, Ili NEWGATE.' 

"Sermons in stones "—As you Like It. 
"Out! out! daiJined spot!" — Macbeth. 

I LIKE you, Mrs. Fry ! I like your name ! 

It speaks the very warmth you feel in pressing 
In daily act roiyid Charity's great flame — 

I like the crisp Browne way you have of dressing 
Good Mrs. Fry ! I like the placid claim 

You make to Christianity — professing 
Love, and good works — of course you buy of Barton, 
Beside the joung fry' s booksellers. Friend Darton I 

I like good Mrs. Fry, your brethren mute — 
Those serious, solemn gentlemen that Sport — 

I should have said, that trear, the sober suit 

Shaped like a court dress — but for heaven's court. 

I like your sisters too — sweet Rachel's fruit — 
Protestant nuns 1 I like their^ stiff support 

Of virtue — and I like to see them clad 

With such a difference — just like good from bad ! 

I like the sober colors — not the west ; 

Those gaudy manufactures of the rainbow — 



A FRIENDLY ADDRESS TO MRS. FRY. 411 

Green, orange, crimson, purple, violet — 

In which the fair, the flirting, and the vain, go — 

The others are a chaste, severer set, 

In which the good, the pious, and the plain, go — 

Thej 're moral standards^ to know Christians by — 

In short, they are your colors^ Mrs. Fry ! 

As for the naughty tinges of the prism — 

Crimson's the cruel uniform of war — 
Blue — hue of brimstone ! minds no catechism ; 

And green is young and gay — not noted for 
Goodness, or gravity, or quietism, 

Till it is saddened down to tea-green, or 
Olive — and purple 's given to wine, I guess ; 
And yellow is a convict by its dress ! 

They 're all the devil's liveries, that men 

And women wear in servitude to sin — 
But how will they come off, poor motleys, when 

Sin's wages are paid down, and they stand in 
The Evil presence ! You and I know, then 

How all the party colors Avill begin 
To part— the Pittite hues will sadden there, 
Whereas the Poxite shades will all show fair ! 

Witness their goodly labors one by one ! 

Russet makes garments for the needy poor — 
Dove-color preaches love to all — and dim 

Calls every day at Charity's street-door — 
Broivn studies Scripture, and bids w^omen shun 

All gaudy furnishing — olive doth pour 
Oil into wounds : and drab and slate supply 
Scholar and book in Newgate, Mrs. Fry ! 



412 A FRIENDLY ADDRESS TO MRS. FRY. 

Well ! Heaven forbid that I should discommend 

The gratis, charitable, jail-endeavor ! 
When all persuasions in your praises blend — 

The Methodist's creed and cry are. Fry forever ! 
;N'o — I will be your friend — and, like a friend, 

Point out your very worst defect — Nay, never 
Start at that word ! But I 7nust ask you why 
You keep your school in Newgate, Mrs. Fry ? 

Too well I know the price our mother Eve 

Paid for her schooling : but must all her daughters 

Commit a petty larceny, and thieve — 

Pay down a crime for ^' entrance'' to your '-'■ quarters?'''^ 

Your classes may increase, but I must grieve 
Over your pupils at their bread and waters ! 

Oh, tho' it cost you rent — (and rooms run high) 

Keep your school out of Newgate, Mrs. Fry ! 

save the vulgar soul before it 's spoiled ! 

Set up your mounted sign without the gate — - 
And there inform the mind before 'tis soiled ! 

'Tis sorry writing on a greasy slate ! 
Nay, if you would not have your labors foiled, 

Take it inclining towards a virtuous state, 
Not prostrate and laid flat — else, woman meek ! 
The upright pencil will but hop and shriek ! 

All, who can tell how hard it is to drain 
The evil spirit from the heart it preys in — 

To bring sobriety to life again, 

Choked with the vile Anacreontic raisin — 

To wash Black Betty when her black's ingrain — 
To stick a moral lacquer on Moll Brazen, 

Of Suky Tawdry's habits to deprive her ; 

To tame the wild-fowl ways of Jenny Diver ! 



A FRIENDLY ADDRESS TO MRS. FRY. 413 

Ah, who can tell how hard it is to teach 
Miss Nancy Dawson on her bed of straw — 

To make Long Sal sew up the endless breach 

She made in manners — to write heaven's own law 

On hearts of granite. — Naj, how hard to preach, 
In cells, that are not memory's — to draw 

The moral thread, thro' the immoral eye 

Of blunt Whitechapel natures, Mrs. Fry! 

In vain you teach them baby -work within : 

'Tis but a clumsy botchery of crime ; 
'Tis but a tedious darning of old sin — 

Come out yourself, and stitch up souls in time — 
It is too late for scouring to begin 

When virtue 's ravelled out, when all the prime 
Is worn away, and nothing sound remains ; 
You '11 fret the fabric out before the stains ! 

I like your chocolate, good Mistress Fry ! 

I like your cookery in every way ; 
I like your shrove-tide service and supply ; 

I like to hear your sweet Pandeans play ; 
I like the pity in your full-brimmed eye ; 

I like your carriage, and your silken gray, 
Your dove-like habits, and your silent preaching ; 
But I don't like your Newgatory teaching. 

Come out of Newgate, Mrs. Fry ! Repair 
Abroad, and find your 'pupils in the streets. 

0, come abroad into the wholesome air. 

And take your moral place, before Sin seats 

Her wicked self in the Professor's chair. 

Suppose some morals raw ! the true receipt 's 

To dress them in the pan, but do not try 

To cook them in the fire, good Mrs. Fry ! 



414 A FRIENDLY ADDRESS TO MRS. FRY. 

Put on your decent bonnet, and come out ! 

Good lack ! the ancients did not set up schools 
In jail — but at the Porch ! hinting, no doubt, 

That Vice shouldhave a lesson in the rules 
Before 't was whipt by law. — come about. 

Good Mrs. Fry ! and set up forms and stools 
All down the Old Bailey, and thro' Newgate-street, 
But not in Mr. Wontner s proper seat ! 

Teach Lady Barrymore, if, teaching, you 

That peerless Peeress can absolve from dolor ; 

Teach her it is not virtue to pursue 
Ruin of blue, or any other color ; 

Teach her it is not Virtue's crown to rue. 

Month after month, the unpaid drunken dollar ; 

Teach her that " flooring Charleys" is a game 

Unworthy one that bears a Christian name. 

come and teach our children — that ar'n't mirs — 
That heaven's straight pathway is a narrow way, 

Not Broad St. Giles's, where fierce Sin devours 
Children, like Time — or rather they both prey 

On youth together — meanwhile Newgate low'rs 
Even like a black cloud at the close of day, 

To shut them out from any more blue sky : 

Think of these hopeless wretches, Mrs. Fry ! 

You are not nice — go into their retreats, 

And make them Quakers, if you will.— 'T were best 
They wore straight collars, and their shirts sans pleats ; 

That they had hats ivith brims — that they were drest 
In garbs without lap pels — than shame the streets 

With so much raggedness. — You may invest 
Much cash this way — but it will cost its price, 
To give a good, round, real cheque to Vice I 



A FRIENDLY ADDRESS TO MRS. FRY. 415 

In brief — Oh teach the child its moral rote, 

Not in the way from which 't will not depart — 

But out — out — out ! Oh, bid it walk remote ! 
And if the skies are closed against the smart, 

Even let him wear the single-breasted coat, 
For that ensureth singleness of heart. — 

Do what you will, his every want supply, 

Keep him — but out of Newgate, Mrs. Fry ! 



ODE 

TO RICHARD MARTIN, ESQUIRE, 

M.P. FOR GAL WAY.* 
'■'Martin, in this, has proved himself a very good Manl" — Boxiana. 

How many sing of wars, 

Of Greek and Trojan jars — 

The butcheries of men ! 
The Muse hath a " Perpetual Ruby Pen !" 
Dabblmg with heroes and the blood they spill ; 

But no one sings the man 

Tliat, like a pelican, 
Nourishes Pity with his tender Bill! 

Thou Wilberforce of hacks ! 

Of whites as well as blacks, 

Pyebald and dapple grey, 

Chestnut and bay — 

No poet's eulogy thy name adorns! 

But oxen, from the fens. 

Sheep — in their pens, 
Praise thee, and red cows with their winding hornr 
Thou art sung on brutal pipes ! 

Drovers may curse thee, 

Knackers asperse thee, 



ODE TO RICHARD MARTIN, ESQ. 417 



And sly M.P.'s bestow their cruel Avipes ; 
But the old horse neighs thee, 
And zebras praise thee, 
Asses, I mean — that have as manj stripes ! 

Hast thou not taught the Drover to forbear, 
In Smith field's muddy, murderous, vile environ — 
Staying his lifted bludgeon in the air ! 
Bullocks don't wear 
Oxide of iron ! 
The cruel Jarvy thou hast summoned oft. 
Enforcing mercy on the coarse Yahoo, 
That thought his horse the courser of the two — 

Whilst Swift smiled down aloft ! — 
worthy pair ! for this, when ye inhabit 
Bodies of birds — (if so the spirit shifts 
From flesh to feather) — when the clown uplifts 
His hands against the sparrows nest, to grab it — 
He shall not harm the Martixs and the Swifts! 

Ah ! when Dean Swift was quick^ how he enhanced 
The horse ! — and humbled biped man like Plato ! 
But now he 's dead, the charger is mischanced — 
Gone backward in the world — and not advanced — 

Remember Cato ! 
Swift was the horse's champion — not the King's 

Whom Southey sings. 
Mounted on Pegasus — would he were thrown 1 
He '11 wear that ancient hackney to the bone, 
Like a mere clothes-horse airing royal things ! 
Ah well-a-day ! the ancients did not use 
Then- steeds so cruelly ! — let it debar men 
From wonted ro welling and whi})'s abuse — 
Look at the ancients' Muse ! 

Look at their Carmen ! 

YOL. II. 27 



418 ODE TO EICHARD MARTIN, ESQ. 

0, Martin ! how thine eje — 
That one would think had put aside its lashes — 

That can"t bear gashes 
Thro' any liorse's side, must ache to spy 
That horrid window fronting Fetter-lane — 
For there 's a nag the crows have picked for victual, 
Or some man painted in a bloody vein — 
Gods 1 is there no Horse-spital ! 
That such raw shows must sicken the humane ! 
Sure Mr. Whittle 
Loves thee but little, 
To let that poor horse linger in hi^pane! 

build a Brookes' s Theatre for horses ! 
wipe away the national reproach — ■ 

And find a decent Vulture for their corses ! 
And in thy funeral track 
Four sorry steeds shall follow in each coach 1 

Steeds that confess ''the luxury oficoT' 
True mourning steeds, in no extempore black, 

And many a wretched hack 
Shall sorrow for thee — sore with kick and blow 
And bloody gash — it is the Indian knack — 
(Save that the savage is his own tormentor) — 
Banting shall weep too in his sable scarf — 
The biped woe the quadruped shall enter, 

And Man and Horse go half and half, 
As if their griefs met in a common Centaur I 



ODE 

TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN. 

"0 breatlic not his name!'" — Moore. 

Thou Great Unknown! 
I do not mean Eternity, nor Death, 

That vast incog ! 
For I suppose thou hast a living breath, 
Howbeit we know not from whose lungs 'tis blown, 

Thou man of fog ! 
Parent of many children — child of none! 

Nobody's son ! 
Nobody's daughter — but a parent still! 
Still but an ostrich parent of a batch 
Of orphan eggs — left to the world to hatch. 

Superlative Nil ! 
A vox and nothing more — -yet not Vauxhall ; 
A head in papers, yet without a curl ! 

Not the Invisible Girl ! 
No hand — but a hand- writing on a wall — 

A popular nonentity, 
Still called the same — without identity ! 

A lark, heard out of sight — 
A nothing shined upon — invisibly bright, 

"Dark with excess of light!" 



420 ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN. 

Constable's literary John-a-nokes — 

The real Scottish wizard— and not which, 

Nobody — in a niche ; 

Every one's hoax ! 

Maybe Sir Walter Scott— 
Perhaps not ! 
Why dost tliou so conceal and puzzle curious folk^? 

Thou — whom the second-sighted never saw. 
The Master Fiction of fictitious history ! 

Chief Nong tong paw 1 
No mister in the Avorld — and yet all mystery ! 
The "tricksy spirit" of a Scotch Cock Lane — ■ 
A novel Junius puzzling the world's brain — 
A man of Magic — yet no talisman ! 
A man of clair obscure — not he o' the moon ! 

A star — at noon. 
A non-descriptus in a caravan, 
A private — of no corps — a northern light 
In a dark lantern — Bogie in a crape — - 
A figure — but no shape ; 
A vizor — and no knight ; 
The real abstract hero of the age ; 
The staple Stranger of the stage ; 
A Some One made in every man's presumption, 
Frankenstein's monster — but instinct with gumption; 
Another strange state captive in the north, 
Constable-guarded in an iron mask — 
Still let me ask, 
Hast thou no silver-platter, 
No door-plate, or no card — or some such matter, 
To scrawl a name upon, and then cast forth ? 



ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN. 421 

Thou Scottish Barmecide, feedin -- the hunorer 

o o 

Of Curiosity with airj gammon ! 
Thou mystery-monger, 
Dealing it out like middle cut of salmon, 
This people buy and can't make head or tail of it ; 
(Howbeit that puzzle never hurts the sale of it ;) 
Thou chief of authors mystic and abstractical, 
That lay their proper bodies on the shelf — 
Keeping thyself so truly to thyself, 

Thou Zimmerman made practical ! 
Thou secret fountain of a Scottish style. 

That, like the Nile, 
Hideth its source wherever it is bred, 

But still keeps disemboguing 

(Not disembroguing) 
Thro' such broad sandy mouths without a head ! 
Thou disembodied author — not yet dead — 
The whole world's literary Absentee ! 

Ah ! wherefore hast thou fled. 
Thou learned Nemo — wise to a degree, 

Anonymous L. L. D. ! 

Thou nameless captain of the nameless gang 
That do — and inquests cannot say who did it ! 

Wert thou at Mrs. Donatty's death-pang? 
Hast thou made gravy of Weares watch — or hid it? 
Hast thou a Blue-Beard chamber ? Heaven forbid it ! 

I should be very loth to see thee hang ! 
I hope thou hast an alibi w^ell planned, 
An innocent, altho' an ink-black hand. 

Tho' thou hast newly turned thy private bolt on 
The curiosity of all invaders — 

I hope thou art merely closeted with Colton, 



422 ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN. 

Wlio knows a little of the Holy Land, 

Writing thy next new novel — The Crusaders ! 

Perhaps thou wert even born 
To be Unknown. — Perhaps hung, some foggy morn^ 
At Captain Coram' s charitable wicket, 

Pinned to a ticket 
That Fate had made illegible, foreseeing 
The future great unmentionable being. — 

Perhaps thou hast ridden 
A scholar poor on St. Augustine's Back, 
Like Chatterton, and found a dusty pack 

Of Rowley novels in an old chest hidden ; 
A little hoard of clever simulation, 

That took the town — and Constable has bidden 
Some hundred pounds for a continuation — 
To keep and clothe thee in genteel starvation. 

I liked thy Waverley — first of thy breeding ; 

I liked its modest "sixty years ago," 
As if it was not meant for ages' reading. 

I don't like Ivanhoe, 
Tho' Dymoke does — it makes him think of chattering 

In iron overalls before the king. 
Secure from battering, to ladies flattering, 

Tuning his challenge to the gauntlet's ring — 
Oh better far than all that anvil clang 

It was to hear thee touch the famous string 
Of Robin Hood's tough bow and make it twang, , 
Rousing him up, all verdant, with his clan, 
Like Sasfittarian Pan ! 



I like Guy Mannering — but not that sham son 
Of Brown. — I like that literary Sampson, 



ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN. 423 

Nine-tenths a Dyer, with a smack of Porson. 
I like Dirk Hatteraick, that rough sea Orson 

That slew the Guager : 
And Dandie Dinmont, like old Ursa Major ; 
And Merrilies, young Bertram's old defender, 

That Scottish Witch of Endor, 
That doomed thy fame. She was the Witch. I take it, 
To tell a great man's fortune — or to make it ! 



I like thy Antiquary. With his fit on, 

He makes me think of IMr. Britton, 
Who has — or had — within his garden wall, 
A m'uiiatnre Stone Henge^ so very small 

The sparrows find it difficult to sit on ; 
And Dousterswivel, like Poyais' McGregor ; 
And Edie Ochiltree, that old Blue Beggar^ 

Painted so cleverly, 
I think thou surely knowest Mrs. Beverly ! 
I like thy Barber — him that fired the Beacon — 
But that 's a tender subject now to speak on! 

I like long-armed Rob Roy. — His very charms 
Fashioned him for renown ! — In sad sincerity, 

The man that robs or writes must have long arms. 
If he 's to hand his deeds down to posterity ! 
Witness Miss Biffin's posthumous prosperity. 
Her poor brown crumpled mummy (nothing more) 

Bearing the name she bore, 
A thing Time's tooth is tempted to destroy ! 
But Roys can never die — Avhy else, in verity, 
Is Paris echoing with " Vive le Roy !"' 

Ay, Rob shall live again, and deathless Di 



424 ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN. 

Yernon, of course, shall often live again — 
Whilst there 's a stone in Newgate, or a chain, 

Who can pass by 
Nor feel the Thief's in prison and at hand ? 
There be Old Bailey Jarvjs on the stand ! 

I like thy Landlord's Tales ! — I like that Idol 
Of love and Lammermoor — the blue-eyed maid 
That led to church the mounted cavalcade, 

And then pulled up with such a bloody bridal ! 
Throwing equestrian Hymen on his haunches — 
I like the family (not silver) branches 
That hold the tapers 

To lisjht the serious le2;end of Montrose. — 
I like M'Aulay's second-sighted vapors, 
As if he could not walk or talk alone. 
Without the Devil — or the Great Unknown — 

Dalgetty is the dearest of Ducrows ! 

I like St. Leonard's Lily — drenched with dew I 
I like thy Vision of the Covenanters, 
That bloody-minded Graham shot and slew. 
I like the battle lost and won ; 
The hurly burly 's bravely done. 
The warlike gallops and the Avarlike canters ! 
I like that girded chieftain of the ranters. 
Ready to preach down heathens, or to grapple, 
With one eye on his sword, 
And one upon the Word — 
How he would cram the Caledonian Chapel ! 
I like stern Claverhouse, though he doth dapple 
His raven steed with blood of many a corse — • 
I like dear Mrs. Headrigg, that unravels 



ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN. 425 

Her texts of Scripture on a trotting horse — 
She is so like Rae Wilson when he travels ! 

I like thy Kenilworth — but I 'm not going 

To take a Retrospective Re-Review 
Of all thy dainty novels — merely showing 

The old familiar faces of a few, 
The question to renew, 
How thou canst leave such deeds without a name, 
Forego the unclaimed dividends of fame, 
Forego the smiles of literary houris — 
Mid Lothian's trump, and Fife's shrill note of praise, 

And all the Carse of Gowrie's, 
When thou might' st have thy statue in Cromarty — 

Or see thy image on Italian trays, 
Betwixt Queen Caroline and Buonaparte. 

Be painted by the Titian of R. A.'s, 
Or vie in sign-boards with the Royal Guelph ! 

Perhaps have thy bustset cheek by jowl withPIomer's, 
P'rhaps send out plaster proxies of thyself 

To other Ensrlands with Australian roamers — 
IMayhap, in Literary Owhyhee 
Displace the native wooden gods, or be 
The China-La r of a Canadian shelf 1 

It 16 not modesty that bids thee hide — 
She never wastes her blushes out of sisiht : 
It is not to invite 
The world's decision, for thy fime is tried — • 
And thy fair deeds are scattered far and wide, 
Even royal heads are with thy readers reckoned — 
From men in trencher caps to trencher scholars 
In crimson collars, 



4:26 ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWjST. 

And learned Serjeants in the Forty- Second ! 
Whither by land or sea art thou not beckoned ? 
Mayhap exported from the Frith of Forth, 
Defying distance and its dim control ; 

Perhaps read about Stromness, and reckoned worth 
A brace of Miltons for capacious soul — 

Perhaps studied in the whalers, further north, 
And set above ten Shakspeares near the pole ! 

Oh, when thou writest by Aladdin's lamp. 
With such a giant genius at command, 

For ever at thy stamp, 
To fill thy treasury from Fairy Land, 
When haply thou might' st ask the pearly hand 
Of some great British Yizier's eldest daughter, 

Tho' princes sought her. 
And lead her in procession hymeneal, 
Oh, why dost thou remain a Beau Ideal ! 
Why stay, a ghost, on the Lethean Wharf, 
Enveloped in Scotch mist and gloomy fogs ? 
Why, but because thou art some puny -Dwarf, 
Some hopeless Lup, like Riquet with the Tuft, 
Fearing, for all thy wit, to be rebuifed. 
Or bullied by our great reviewing Gogs ? 

What in this masking age 
Maketh Unknowns so many and so shy ? 

What but the critic's page? 
One hath a cast, he hides from the world's eye ; 
Another hath a wen — he won't show where ; 

A third has sandy hair, 
A hunch upon his back, or legs awry. 
Things for a vile reviewer to espy ! 
Another has a mangel-wurzel nose — 



I 



ODE TO THE CJREAT UNKNOWN. 427 

Finally, this is dimpled, 
Like a pale crumpet face, or that is pimpled, 
Things for a monthly critic to expose — 
Nay, what is thy own case — that being small, 
Thou choosest to be nobody at all ! 

Well, thou art prudent, with such puny bones — 
E'en like Elshender, the mysterious elf, 
That shadowy revelation of thyself — 
To build thee a small hut of haunted stones — 
For certainly the first pernicious man 
That ever saw thee, would quickly draw thee 
In some vile literary caravan — 
Shown for a shilling 
Would be thy killing. 
Think of Crachami's miserable span ! 
No tinier frame the tiny spark could dwell in 

Than there it fell in — 
But when she felt herself a show, she tried 
To shrink from the world's eye, poor dwarf! and died! 

since it was thy fortune to be born 
A dwarf on some Scotch Inch^ and then to flinch 
From all the Gog-like jostle of great men, 

Still with thy small crow pen 
Amuse and charm thy lonely hours forlorn — 
Still Scottish story daintily adorn. 

Be still a shade — and when this age is fled, 
When we poor sons and daughters of reality 

Are in our graves forgotten and quite dead, 
And Time destroys our mottoes of morality — 
The lithographic hand of Old Mortality 
Shall still restore thy emblem on the stone, 

A featureless death's head, 
And rob Oblivion ev'n of the Unknown ! 



ADDRESS 
TO MR. DYMOKE,' 

THE CHAMPION OF ENGLAND. 
" Arma Yirumque cano!" — Virgil. 

Mr. Dymoke ! Sir Knight ! if I may be so bold — 
(I 'm a poor simple gentleman just come to town,) 

Is your armor put by, like the sheep in a fold ? — 

Is your gauntlet ta'en up, which you lately flung down? 

Are you — who that day rode so mailed and admired, 

Now sitting at ease in a library chair ? 
Have you sent back to Astley the war-horse you hired, 

With a cheque upon Chambers to settle the fare ? 

What 's become of the cup? Great tin-plate worker ? say? 

Cup and ball is a game which some people deem fun ! 
Oh ! three golden balls haven't lured you to play 

Rather false, Mr. D., to all pledges but one? 

How defunct is the show that was chivalry's mimic ! 

The breast-plate — the feathers — the gallant array ! 
So fades, so grows dim, and so dies, Mr. Dymoke ! 

The day of brass breeches ! as Wordsworth would say ! 

Perchance in some village remote, with a cot, 

And a cow, and a pig, and a barn-door, and all ; — 

You show to the parish that peace is your lot, 

And plenty — tho' absent from Westminster Hall ! 



ODE TO MR. DYMOKE. 42D 

And of course you turn every accoutrement now 

To its separate use, that your wants may be well met ; — 

You toss in your breast-plate your pancakes, and grow 
A salad of mustard and cress in your helmet. 

And you delve the fresh earth with your falchion, less bright 
Since hung up in sloth from its Westminster task ; — 

And you ])ake your own bread in your tin ; and. Sir Knight, 
Instead of your brow, put your beer in the casq[ue ! 

How delightful to sit by your beans and your peas, 
With a goblet of gooseberry gallantly clutched, 

And chat of the blood that had deluged the Pleas, 

And drenched the King's Bench — if the glove had been 
touched ! 

If Sir Columbine Daniel, with knightly pretensions, 

Had snatched your "best doe," — he'd have flooded the 
floor ; — 

Nor would even the best of his crafty inventions, 

"Life Preservers," have floated him out of his gore ! 

Oh, you and your horse ! what a couple was there ! 

The man and his backer — to win a great fight ! 
Though the trumpet was loud — you 'd an undisturbed air ! 

And the nag snuffed the feast and the fray sans affright ! 

Yet strange was the course which the good Cato bore 
When he waddled tail-wise with the cup to his stall ; — 

For though his departure was at the front door. 

Still he went the back way out of Westminster Hall. 

He went — and 't would puzzle historians to say. 

When they trust Time's conveyance to carry your mail—* 

Whether caution or courage inspired him that day, 
For, though he retreated, he never turned tail. 



480 ODE TO ME. DYMOKE. 

By my life, he 's a wonderful charger ! — The best ! 

Though not for a Parthian corps ! — yet for you ! — 
Distinguished alike at a fray and a feast, 

What a Horse for a grand Retrospective Review ! 

What a creature to keep a hot warrior cool 

When'the sun's in the face, and the shade's far aloof! 

What a tail-piece for Bewick ! — or pyebald for Poole, 
To bear him in safety from Elliston's hoof! 

Well ; hail to Old Cato ! the hero of scenes ! 

May Astley or age ne'er his comforts abridge ; — 
Oh, long mxay he munch Amphitheatre beans, 

Well ' ' pent up in Utica' ' over the Bridge ! 

And to you, Mr. Dymoke, Cribb's rival, I keep 

Wishing all country pleasures, the bravest and best I 

And oh ! Avhen you come to the Hummums to sleep, 
May you lie " like a warrioi- taking his resul" 



ODE 



TO JOSEPH GRIMALDI, SENIOR.^ 

"This fellow's wise enough to play the fool, 
And to do that well craves a kind of wit." 

Twelbt:u Nioht. 

Joseph ! thej say thou 'st left the stage, 
To toddle down the hill of life. 

And taste the flannelled ease of age, 
Apart from pantomimic strife — 

"Retired — (for Young would call it so) — 

The world shut out" — in Pleasant Row ! 

And hast thou really washed at last 

From each white cheek the red half moon 

And all thy public Clownship cast, 
To play the private Pantaloon ? 

All youth — all ages — yet to be 

Shall have a heavy miss of thee ! 



Thou didst not preach to make us wise — 
Thou hadst no finger in our schooling — 

Thou didst not " lure us to the skies"' — 
Thy simple, simple trade w^as — Fooling ! 

And yet, Heaven knows ! we could — we can 

Much '"better spare a better man !" 



432 ODE TO JOSEPH GRIMALDI. 

Oh, had it pleased the gout to take 
The reverend Crolj from the stage, 

Or Southej, for our quiet's sake, 
Or Mr. Fletcher, Cupid's sage, 

Or, damme ! namby pambj Poole — 

Or any other clown or fool ! 

Go, Dibdin — all that bear the name, 
Go Byway Highvmy man ! go! go! 

Go, Skeffy — man of painted fame, 
But leave thy partner, painted Joe ! 

I could bear Kirby on the wane, 

Or Signor Paulo with a sprain 1 

Had Joseph Wilfred Parkins made 

His gray hairs scarce in private peace — 

Had Waithman sought a rural shade — 
Or Cobbett ta'en a turnpike lease — 

Or Lisle Bowles gone to Balaam Hill — 

I think I could be cheerful still 1 

Had Medwin left off, to his praise, 
Dead lion kicking, like — a friend ! — 

Had long, long Irving gone his ways, 
To muse on death at Ponder s End — 

Or Lady ^lorgan taken leave 

Of Letters — still I might not grieve ! 

But, Joseph — every body's Jo! — 
Is gone — and grie^^e I will and must ! 

As Hamlet did for Yorick, so 

Will I for thee, (tho' not yet dust,) 

And talk as he did when he missed 

The kissing-crust that ho had kissed ! 



ODE TO JOPEPH GRTMALDI. 433 

Ah, where is now thy rolling head ! 

Thy winking, reeling, drunken eyes, 
(As old Catullus would have said,) 

Thy oven-mouth, that swallowed pies — 
Enormous hunger — monstrous drouth 1 
Thy pockets greedy as thy mouth ! 

Ah, Vvhere thy ears, so often cuffed ! — 
Thy funny, flapping, filching hands ! — 

Thy partridge body, always stuffed 

With "waifs, and strays, and contrabands ! — 

Thy foot — like Berkeley's Poote — for why? 

'T was often made to wipe an eye ! 

Ah, where thy legs — that witty pair 

For " great wits jump" ~ and so did they! 

Lord ! how they leaped in lamp-light air ! 
Capered — and bounced — and strode away ! — 

That years should tame the legs — alack ! 

I 've seen spring thro' an Almanack ! 

But bounds Avill have their bound — the shocks 

Of Time will cramp the nimblest toes ; 
And those that frisked in silken clocks 

May look to limp in fleecy hose- 
One only — (Champion of the ring) 
Could ever make his Winter — Spring ! 

And gout, that owns no odds between 

The toe of Czar and toe of Clown, 
Will visit — but I did not mean 

To moralize, though I am grown 
Thus sad — Thy going seemed to beat 
A muffled drum for Fun's retreat ! 
VOL. n 28 



434 ODE TO JOSEPH GRIMALDI. 

And, may be — 'tis no time to smother 
A sigh, when two prime wags of London, 

Are gone — thou, Joseph, one — the other 
A Joe ! — " sic transit gloria MmidenT^ 

A third departure some insist on — 

Stage-apoplexj threatens Liston ! — 

Nay, then, let Sleeping Beauty sleep 
With ancient " Dozexf^ to the dregs — 

Let Mother Goose wear mourning deep, 
And put a hatchment o'er her eggs ! 

Let Farley weep — for Magic's man 

Is gone — his Christmas Caliban ! 

Let Kemble, Forbes, and Willet rain, 
As tho' they walked behind thy bier — 

For since thou wilt not play again, 
What matters — if in heaven or here ! 

Or in thy grave, or in thy bed ! — 

There's Quick ^ might just as well be dead I 

Oh, how will thy departure cloud 
The lamp-light of the little breast ! 

The Christmas child will grieve aloud 
To miss his broadest friend and best — 

Poor urchin ! what avails to him 

The cold New Monthly's Ghost of Grimm \ 

For who like thee could ever stride 
Some dozen pacers to the mile I — 

The motley, medley coach provide — 
Or like Joe Frankenstein compile 

The vegetable man, complete ! — • 

A proper Covtnt Garden feat! 



ODE TO JOSEPH GRIMALDI. 435 

Oh, who like thee could ever drink, 

Or eat — swill — swallow — bolt — and choke! 

Nod, weep, and hiccup — sneeze and wink? — 
Thy very yawn was quite a joke ! 

Tho' Joseph Junior acts not ill, 

'' There 's no Fool like the old Fool" still I 

Joseph, farewell ! dear funny Joe I 

We met with mirth — we part in pain ! 
For many a long, long year must go, 

Ere Fun can see thy like again — 
For Nature does not keep great stores 
Of perfect Clowns — that are not Boors ! 



ADDRESS 

TO SYLVANUS URBAN, ESQUIRE/ 

EDITOR OF THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. 

"Dost thou not suspect my years?" 

Much Ado About Nothing. 

Oh ! Mr. Urban ! never must thou lurch 
A sober age made serious drunk bj thee ; 

Hop in thy pleasant way from church to church, 
And nurse thy little bald Biography. 

Oh, my Sylvanus ! what a heart is thine ! 

And what a page attends thee ! Long may I 
Hang in demure confusion o'er each line 

That asks thy little questions with a sigh ! 

Old tottering years have nodded to their falls, 
Like pensioners that creep about and die ; — 

But thou, Old Parr of periodicals, 
Livest in monthly immortality ! 

How sweet ! — as Byron of his infant said — 
" Knowledge of objects" in thine eye to trace; 

To see the mild no-meanings of thy head, 
Taking a quiet nap upon thy face ! 

How dear through thy Obituary to roam, 
And not a name of any name to catch ! 

To meet thy Criticism walking home, 

Averse from rows, and never callino: "Watch!" 



ADDRESS TO SYLVANUS URBAN, ESQ. 437 

Rich is thj page in soporific things — 
Composing compositions — lulling men — 

Faded old posies of unburied rings — 

Confessions dozing from an opiate pen : — 

Lives of Right Reverends that have never lived — 
Deaths of good people that have really died — ■ 

Parishioners — hatched — husbanded — and wived. 
Bankrupts and Abbots breaking side by side ! 

The sacred query —the remote response — 

The march of serious minds, extremely slow — 

The graver's cut at some right aged sconce, 
Famous for nothing many years ago ! 

B. asks of C. if Milton e'er did write 

" Comus," obscured beneath some Ludlow lid; — 
And C, next month, an answer doth indite, 

Informino; B. that Mr. Milton did ! 



X. sends the portrait of a genuine flea, 
Caught upon Martin Luther years agone ; 

And Mr. Parkes, of Shrewsbury, draws a bee, 
Long dead, that gathered honey for King John. 

There is no end of thee — there is no end, 
Sylvanus, of thy A, B, C, D-merits ! 

Thou dost, with alphabets, old walls attend, 
And poke the letters into holes, like ferrets ! 

Go on, Sylvanus! — Bear a wary eye, 

The churches cannot yet be quite run out ! 

Some parishes must yet have been passed by — 
There 's Bullock- Smithy has a church no doubt ! 



438 ADDRESS TO SYLVANUS URBAN, ESQ. 

Go on — and close the ejes of distant ages ! 

Nourish the names of the undoubted dead ! 
So Epicures shall pick thy lobster-pages, 

Heavy and lively, though but seldom red. 

Go on ! and thrive ! Demurest of odd fellows ! 

Bottling up dullness in an ancient binn ! 
Still live ! still prose ! continue still to tell us 

Old truths ! no strangers, though we take them in I 



AN ADDRESS 

TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY." 

" Archer. How many are there, Soruh ? 
Scrub. Five and forty, Sir." — Beaux Stratagem. 
"For shame — let the liuen aloae !" — Merry Wives of Windsor. 

Mr. Scrub — Mr. Slop — or whoever you be ! 

The Cock of Steam Laundries — the head Patentee 

Of Associate Cleansers — Chief founder and prime 

Of the firm for the wholesale distilling of grime — 

Co-partners and dealers, in linen's propriety — 

That make washing public — and wash in society — 

lend me your ear ! if that ear can forego, 

For a moment, the music that bubbles below — 

From your new Surrey Geisers all foaming and hot — 

That soft " simmer s sang" so endeared to the Scot — 

If your hands may stand still, or your steam without danger — 

If your suds will not cool, and a mere simple stranger, 

Both to you and to washing, may put in a rub — 

wipe out your Amazon arms from the tub — 

And lend me your ear— Let me modestly plead 

For a race that your labors may soon supersede — 

For a race that, now washing no living affords — 

Like Grimaldi must leave their aquatic old boards, 

Not with pence in their pockets to keep them at ease. 

Not with bread in the funds — or investments of cheese — 



440 ADDRESS TO.. THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY. 

But to droop like sad willows that lived by a stream^ 

Which the sun has sucke4 up into vapor and steam. 

Ah, look at the Laundress, before you begrudge 

Her hard daily bread to that laudable drudge — 

When chanticleer singeth his earliest rnatins, 

She slips her amphibious feet in her pattens, 

And beginneth her toil while the morn is still gray, 

As if she was washing th.e night into day — 

Not with sleeker or rosier fingers Aurora 

Beginneth to scatter the dew-drops before her ; 

Not Venus that rose from the billow^ so early, 

Looked down on the foam with a forehead more pearly — 

Her head is involved in an aerial mist, 

And a bria;ht-beaded bracelet encircles her wrist ; 

Her visage glows warm with the ardor of duty ; 

She 's Industry's moral — she 's all moral beauty ! 

Growing brighter and brighter at every rub — 

Would any man ruin her ? — No, Mr. Scrub ! 

No man that is manly would work her mishap — 

No man that is manly would covet her cap — 

Nor her apron — her hose — nor her gown made of stuff— 

Nor her gin — nor her tea — nor her wet pinch of snuff! 

Alas ! so she thought— but that slippery hope 

Has betrayed her — as tho' she had trod on her soap ! 

And she— whose support— like the fishes that fly. 

Was to have her fins wet, must now drop from her sky — 

She whose living it was, and a part of her fare, 

To be damped once a day, like the great white sea bear, 

With her hands like a sponge, and her head like a mop — 

Quite a living absorbent that revelled in slop — 

She that paddled in water, must walk upon sand. 

And sigh for her deeps like a turtle on land ! 



ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY. 4!1 

Lo, then, the poor Laundress, all -wretched she stands, 
Instead of a counterpane, wringing her hands ! 
All haggard and pinched, going down in life's vale, 
With no faggot for burning, like Allan-a-dale ! 
No smoke from her flue — and no steam from her pane. 
There once she watched heaven, fearing God and the rain — - 
Or gazed o'er her bleach-field so fairly engrossed, 
Till the lines wandered idle from pillar to post ! 
Ah, where are the playful young pinners — ah, where 
The harlequin quilts that cut capers in air — 
The brisk waltzing stockmgs — the white and the black, 
That danced on the tight-rope, or swung on the slack — 
The light sylph-like garments, so tenderly pinned. 
That blew into shape, and embodied the wind ! 
There was white on the grass — there was white on the spray — 
Her garden — it looked like a garden of May ! 
But now all is dark — not a shirt 's on a shrub — 
You 've ruined her prospects m life, Mr. Scrub ! 
You 've ruined her custom — now families drop her — 
From her silver reduced — nay, reduced from her copper ! 
The last of her washing is done at her eye. 
One poor little kerchief that never gets dry ! 
From mere lack of linen she can't lay a cloth, 
And boils neither barley nor alkaline broth — 
But her children come round her as victuals grow scant, 
And recal, with foul faces, the source of their want — 
When she thinks of their poor little mouths to be fed, 
And then thinks of her trade that is utterly dead, 
And even its pearlashes laid in the grave — 
Whilst her tub is a dry rotting, stave after stave, 
And the greatest of Coopers, ev'n he that they dub 
Sir Astley, can't bind up her heart or her tub — 
Need you wonder she curses your bones, Mr. Scrub ? 



442 ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY. 

Need jou wonder, when steam has deprived her of bread. 
If she prays that the evil may visit yow head — 
Nay, scald all the heads of your Washing Committee — 
If she wishes you all the soot blacks of the city — 
In short, not to mention all plagues without number, 
If she wishes you all in the Wash at the Humber ! 

Ah^ perhaps, in some moment of drouth find despair. 
When her linen got scarce, and lier wasliing grew rare — 
When the sum of her suds might be summed in a bowl, 
And the rusty cold iron quite entered her soul — 
When, perhaps, the last glance of her wandering eye 
Had caught " the Cock Laundresses' Coach"' going by. 
Or her lines that hung idle, to waste the fine weather, 
And she thouojht of her wTongs and her rio-hts both to^-ether, 
In a lather of passion that frothed as it rose, 
Too angry for grammar, too lofty for prose, 
On her sheet — if a sheet were still left her — to write, 
Some remonstrance like this then, perchance, saw the light — 



LETTER OF REMONSTRANCE 

FROM BRIDGET JONES 

TO TIIK NOBLEMEN AND GENTLEMEN FORMING THE WASHING COMMITTEE. 

It 's a shame, so it is — men can't Let alone 

Jobs as is Woman's right to do — and go about there 

Own — 
Theirs Reforms enuff Alreddy without your new schools 
For w^ashing to sit Up — and push the Old Tubs from their 

stools ! 
But your just like the Raddicals — for upsetting of the 

Sudds 



ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY. iA'o 

When the world wagged well enuiF — and Wommen washed 

your old dirty duds. 
I'm Certain sure Enuff jour Ann Sisters had no steem In- 
dians, that 's Flat — 
But I w^arrant your Four Fathers went as Tidy and gentle- 

manny for all tliat— - 
I suppose your the Family as lived in 'the Great Kittle 
I see on Clapham Commun, some times a very considerable 

period back when I were little, 
And they Said it went with Steem — But that was a joke ! 
For I never see none come of it — that 's out of it — but only 

sum Smoak — 
And for All your Power of Horses about your Indians you 

never had but Two 
In my time to draw you About to Fairs — and hang you, 

you know that 's true ! 
And for All your fine Perspectuses — liowsomever you be- 

which em, 
Theirs as Pretty ones off Primerows Hill, as ever a one at 

Mitch um, 
Thof I cant sea What Prospectives and washing has with 

one another to Do — 
It ant as if a Bird'seye Hankicher could take a Birdshigh 

view ! 
But Thats your look out — I 've not much to do with that — 

But pleas God to hold up fine, 
Id show you caps and pinners and small things as lilliwhit 

as Ever crosst the Line 
Without going any Father oif then Little Parodies Place, 
And Thats more than you Can — and 111 say it behind your 

face — 
But when Folks talks of washing, it ant for you to Speak — 
As kept Dockter Patty son out of his Shirt for a Weak ! 



444 ADDRESS TO THE STEAM ^VASHIXri COMPANY. 

Thinks I, when I heard it — Well, there 's a pretty go ! 
That comes o' not marking: of thino;s or washins; out the 

marks, and Huddling 'em up so ! 
Till Their friends comes and owns them, like drownded 

corpeses in a Vault, 
But may Hap you havint Earned to spel — and That ant 

your Fault, 
Only you ought to leafe the Linnins to them as has Larned — ■ 
For if it warnt for Washing — and whare Bills is concarned 
What 's the Yuse, of all the world, for a Wommans Headi- 

cation, 
And Their Being maid Schollards of Sundays — fit for any 

Cityation. 

Well, what I says is This — when every Kittle has its 

spout. 
Theirs no nead for Companys to puif steem about ! 
To be sure its very Well, when Their ant enuff Wind 
For blowing up Boats with — but not to hurt human kind 
Like that Pearkins with his Blunderbush, that's loaded 

with hot water, 
Thof a X Sherrif might know Better, than make things for 

slaughtter, 
As if War warnt Cruel enuif — wherever it befalls, 
Without shooting poor sogers, with sich scalding hot balls — 
But thats not so Bad as a Sett of Bear Faced Scrubbs 
As joins their Sopes together, and sits up Steem rubbing 

Clubs, 
For washing Dirt Cheap — and eating other Peple's grubs ! 
Which is all verry Fine for you and your Patent Tea, 
But I wonders How Poor Wommen is to get Their Beau-He ! 
They must drink Hunt wash (the only wash God nosje there 

will be !) 



ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY. 445 

And their Little drop cf Somethings as they takes for their 

Goods, 
When you and jour Steem has ruined (G — d forgive mee) 

their lively Hoods, 
Poor Wommen as was born to Washing in their youth ! 
And now must go and Larn other Buisnesses Four Sooth ! 
But if so be They leave their Lines what are they to go at — 
They won't do for Angell's — nor any Trade like That, 
Nor we cant Sow Babby Work — for that's all Bespoke — 
For the Queakers in Bridle ! and a vast of the confined 

Folk 
Do their own of Themselves^ — even the bettermost of em — ■ 

aye, and evn them of middling degrees — 
Why Lauk help you Babby Linen ant Bread and Cheese ! 
Nor we can"t go a hammering the roads into Dust, 
But we must all go and be Bankers — like j\ir. Marshes and 

My. Chamberses — and that s what we must! 
God nose you oght to have more Concern for our Sects, 
When you nose you have sucked us and hanged round our 

Mutherly necks, 
And remembers what you Owes to Wommen Besides wash- 
ing— 
You ant, blame you ! like Men to go a slusliing and sloshing 
In mop caps, and pattins, adoing of Females Labors 
And prettily jeared At you great Horse God Meril things, 

vant you now by your next door naybors — 
Lawk I thinks 1 see you with your Sleaves tuckt up 
No more like Washing than is drownding of a Pupp, 
And for all Your Fine Water Works going round and round 
They "11 scruntch your Bones some day — I '11 be bound 
And no more nor be a gudgement — for it cant come to good 
Ta sit up agin Providince, which your a doing — nor not fit 

It should, 



446 ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY. 

For man warnt maid for Wommens starvation, 

Nor to do awaj Laundrisses as is Links of the Creation — 

And cant be dun without in anj Country But a naked 

Hottinpot Nation. 
Ah, I wish our Minister would take one of your Tubbs 
And preach a Sermon in it, and give jOu some good rubs — ■ 
But I warrants jou reads (for you cant spel we nose) 

nyther Bybills or Good Tracks, 
Or youd no better than Taking the close off one's Backs — 
And let your neighbors oxin an Asses alone — 
And every Thing thats hern — and give every one their 

Hone ! 

Well, its God for us Al , and every Washer Wommen for 

herself, 
And so you might, without shoving any on us off the shelf, 
But if you warnt Noddis you Let wommen abe 
And pull off Your Pattins — and leave the washing to we 
That nose what 's what — Or mark what I say, 
Youl make a fine Kittle of fish of Y^our Close some Day — 
When the Aulder men wants Their Bibs and their ant nun 

at all, 
And Cris mass cum — and never a Cloth to lay in Gild Hall, 
Or send a damp shirt to his Woship the Mare 
Till hes rumatiz Poor Man, and cant set uprite to do good 

in his Harm- Chare — 
Besides Miss-Matching Larned Ladys Hose, as is sent for 

you not to wash (for you dont wash) but to stew 
And make Peples Stockins yeller as oght to be Blew 
With a vast more like That— and all along of Steem 
Which warnt meand by Nater for any sich skeam — 
But thats your Losses and youl have to make It Good, 
And I cant say I 'm Sorry afore God if you shoud, 



ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY. 447 

For men mouglit Get their Bread a great Diany ways 

Without taking ourn — aye, and ^ioor to your Prays 

You might go and skim the creme off Mr. Muck- Adam's 

milky ways — that 's what you might, 
Or bete Carpets — or get into Parleamint — or drive Crabro- 

lays from morning to night, 
Or, if you must be of our sects, be Watchmen, and slepe 

upon a poste ! 
(Which IS an od way of sloping, I must say — and a very 

hard pillow at most,) 
Or you might be any trade, as we are not on that I 'm 

awares. 
Or be Watermen now, (not Water-wommen) and roe peple 

up and down Hungerford stares. 
Or if You Was even to Turn Dust Men a dry sifting Dirt ! 
But you oughtint to Hurt Them as never Did You no Hurt ! 

Yourn with Anymocity, 
• Bridget Jones. 



ODE 

TO CAPTAIN PARRY.^ 

" By the North Pole, I do challenge tltee !" 

Love's Labor's Lost. 

Parry, mj man ! has thy brave leg 
Yet struck its foot against the peg 

On which the world is spun ? 
Or hast thou found No Thoroughfare 
Writ by the hand of Nature there 

Where man has never run ! 

Hast thou yet traced the Great Unknown 
Of channels in the Frozen Zone, 

Or held at Icy Bay, 
Hast thou still missed the proper track 
For homeward Indian men that lack 

A bracing by the way ? 

Still hast thou wasted toil and trouble 
On nothing but the North-Sea Bubble 

Of geographic scholar ? 
Or found new ways for ships to shape, 
Instead of winding round the Cape, 

A short cut thro' the collar ! 

« 

Hast found the way that sighs were sent to * 
The Pole — tho' God knows v/hom they went to ! 

* '"And waft a sigh from Indus to the Polo." 

Eloisa to Abelard, 



ODE TO CAPTAIN PARRY. 

That track revealed to Pope — 
Or if the Arctic waters sally, 
Or terminate in some blind alley, 

A chilly path to grope ? 

Alas ! tho' Ross, in love with snows, 
Has painted them coideur de rose 

It is a dismal doom, 
As Claudio saith, to Winter thrice, 
" In regions of thick-ribbed ice" — 

All bright— and yet all gloom ! 

'Tis well for Gheber souls that sit 

Before the fire and worship it 
With pecks of Wallsend coals, 

With feet upon the fender's front. 

Roasting their corns— like Mr. Hunt- 
To speculate on poles. 

'Tis easy for our Naval Board — 
'Tis easy for our Civic Lord 

Of London and of ease, 
That lies in ninety feet of down, 
With fur on his nocturnal gown. 

To talk of Frozen Seas ! 

'Tis fine for Monsieur Ude to sit, 
And prate about the mundane spit, 

And babble of Cook's track- 
He 'd roast th^ leather oifhis toes, 
Ere he would trudge thro" polar snows, 

To plant a British Jack ! 

Oh, not the proud licentious great, 
That travel on a carpet skate, 



449 



VOL. II. 



29 



450 ODE TO CAPTAIN PAKRY. 

Can value toils like thine ! 
What 'tis to take a Hecla range, 
Through ice unknown to Mrs. Grange, 

And alpine lumps of brine ! 

But we, that mount the Hill o' Rhyme, 
Can tell how hard it is to climb 

The lofty slippery steep. 
Ah ! there are more Snow Hills than that 
Which doth black Newgate, like a hat. 

Upon its forehead keep. 

Perchance thou 'rt now — while I am writing- 
Feeling a bear's wet grinder biting 

About thy frozen spine ! 
Or thou thyself art eating whale, 
Oily, and underdone, and stale. 

That, haply, crossed thy line 1 

But I '11 not dream such dreams of ill — 
Rather will I believe thee still 

Safe cellared in the snow — 
Reciting many a gallant story, 
Of British kings and British glory, 

To crony Esquimaux — 

Cheering that dismal game where Night 
Makes one slow move from black to white 

Thro' all the tedious year — 
Or smitten by some fond frost fair, 
That combed out crystals from her hair, 

Wooing a seal-skin Dear ! 

So much a long communion tends, 
As Byron says, to make us friends 



ODE TO CAPTAIN PARRY. 45^ 

With what we daily vieAV — 
God knows the daintiest taste may come 
To love a nose that 's like a plum 

In marble, cold and blue ! 

To dote on hair, an oily fleece ! 

As tho' it hung from Helen o' Greece — 

They say that love prevails 
Ev'n in the veriest polar land— r- 
And surely she may steal thy hand 

That used to steal thy nails ! 

But ah, ere thou art fixt to marry, 
And take a polar Mrs. Parry, 

Think of a six months' gloom — 
Think of the wintry waste, and hers, 
Each furnished with a dozen fitrs^ 

Think of thine icy dome ! 

Think of the children born to blubber ! 
Ah me ! hast thou an Indian rubber 

Inside ! — to hold a meal 
For months — about a stone and half 
Of whale, and part of a sea calf — 

A fillet of salt veal ! — 

Some walrus ham — no trifle but 
A decent steak — a solid cut 

Of seal — no wafer slice ! 
A reindeer's tongue and drink beside! 
Gallons of Sperm — not rectified I 

And pails of water-ice ! 

Oh, canst thou fast and then feast thus ? 
Still come away, and teach to us 



452 ODE TO CAPTAIN PARRY. 

Those ])lessed alternations — 
To-daj to run our dinners fine,. 
To feed on air and then to dine 

With Civic Corporations — 

To save th' Old Bailej daily shilling, 
And then to take a half year s filling 

In P. N.'s pious Row — 
When asked to Hock and haunch o' A'^en'son, 
Thro' something we have worn our pens on 

For Longman and his Co. 

come and tell us what the Pole is — 
Whether it singular and sole is — 

Or straight, or crooked bent — 
If very thick or very thin — 
Made of what wood — and if akin 

To those there be in Kent. 

There 's Combe, there 's Spurzheim, and there 's Gall, 
Have talked of poles — yet, after all, 

What has the public learned ? 
And Hunt's account must still defer — 
He sought the poll at Westminster — 

And is not yet returned! 

Alvanly asks if whist, dear soul. 

Is played in snow-storms near the Pole, 

And how the fur-man deals? 
And Eldon doubts if it be true, 
That icy Chancellors really do 

Exist upon the seals ! 

Barrow, by well-fed office grates, 
Talks of his own bechristened Straits, 



ODE TO CAPTAIN PARRY. 453 

And longs that he were there ; 
And Croker, in his cabriolet, 
Sighs o'er his brown horse, at his Bay, 

And pants to cross the mer I 

O come away, and set us right, 
And, haply, throw a northern light 

On questions such as these : — 
Whether, when this drowned world was lost, 
The surflux waves were locked m frosi, 

And turned to Icy Seas ! 

Is Ursa Major white or black ? 
Or do the Polar tribes attack 

Their neighbors — and what for ? 
Whether they ever play at cuffs, 
And then, if they take off their muffs 

In pugilistic war ? 

Tell us, is Winter champion there, 
As m our milder fio^htino; air ? 

Say, what are Chilly loans ? 
What cures they have for rheums beside, 
And if their hearts gets ossified 

From eating bread of bones ? 

Whether they are such dwarfs — the quicker 
To circulate the vital liquor — 

And then, from head to heel — 
How short the Methodists must choose 
Their dumpy envoys not to lose 

Their toes in spite of zeal ? 

Whether 't will soften or sublime it 
To preach of Hell in such a climate — 



454 ODE TO CAPTAIN PARRY. 

Whether may Wesley hope 
To win their souls — or that old function 
Of seals — with the extreme of unction — 

Bespeaks them for the Pope ? 

Wliether the lamps will e'er be " learned" 
Where six months' " midnight oil" is burned, 

Or Letters must defer 
With people that have never conned 
An A, B, C, but live beyond 

The Sound of Lancaster ! 

O come away at any rate — 

Well hast thou earned a downier state — 

With all thy hardy peers — 
Good lack, thou must be glad to smell dock, 
And rub thy feet with opodeldock, 

After such frosty years. 

Mayhap, some gentle dame at last, 
Smit by the perils thou hast passed, 

However coy before, 
Shall bid thee now set up thy rest 
In that Brest Harbor. Woman's breast, 

And tempt the Fates no more. 






, 



ADDRESS 

TO R. W. ELLISTON, ESQUIRE, 

THE GREAT LESSEE I 

**Do you know, you villain, that I am at this moment the greatest man living?" 

Wild Oats. 

Oh ! Great Lessee ! Great Manager ! Great Man ! 
Oh, Lord High Elliston ! Immortal Pan 
Of all the pipes that plsLj in Drury Lane ! 
Macready's master 1 Westminster's high Dane ! 
(As Galwaj Martin, in the House's walls, 
Hamlet and Doctor Ireland justly calls !) 
Friend to the sweet and ever-smiling Spring 1 
Magician of the lamp and prompter's ring ! 
Drury's Aladdin ! Whipper-in of Actors ! 
Kicker of rebel-preface-malefactors I 
Glass-blowers' corrector ! King of the cheque-taker 1 
At once Great Leamington and Winston-Maker ! 
Dramatic Bolter of plain Bunns and Cakes ! 
In silken hose the most reformed of Rakes ! 
Oh, Lord High Elliston ! lend me an ear ! 
(Poole is away, and Williams shall keep clear) 
While I, in little slips of prose, not verse. 
Thy splendid course, as pattern- worker, rehearse ! 

Bright was thy youth — thy manhood brighter still — 
The greatest Romeo upon Holborn Hill — 



456 ADDEESS TO R. W. ELLISTON, ESQ. . 

Lightest comedian of the pleasant day, 

When Jordan threw her sunshine o'er a play ! 

When fair Thalia held a merry reign, 

And Wit was at her Court in Drury Lane ! 

Before the day w^hen Authors wrote, of course, 

The " Entertainment not for Man but Horse." 

Yet these, though happy, were but subject times, 

And no man cares for bottom-steps that climbs — 

Far from my wish it is to stifle down 

The hours that saw thee snatch the Surrey crown ! 

Tho' now thy hand a mightier sceptre wields, 

Eair was thy reign in sweet St. George's Fields. 

Dibdin was Premier — and a golden age 

For a short time enriched the subject stage. 

Thou hadst, than other Kings, more* peace-and-plenty ; 

Ours but one Bench could boast, whilst thou hadst twenty; 

But the times changed — and Booth-acting no more 

Drew Rulers' shillings to the gallery-door. 

Thou didst, with bag and baggage, wander thence, 

Repentant, like thy neighbor Magdalens ! 

Next, the Olympic Games were tried, each feat 

Practised, the most bewitching in Wych Street. 

Rochester there in dirty ways again 

Revelled — and lived once more in Drury La,ne : 

But thou, R. W. ! kept'st thy moral ways, 

Pit-lecturing 'twixt the fiirces and the plays, 

A lamplight Irving to the butcher boys 

That soiled the benches and that made a noise : — 

Rebuking - Half a Robert, Half a Charles — 

The well-billed Man that called for promised Carles ; 

" Sir ! — Have you yet to know ! Hush— hear me out ! 

A Man — pray silence ! — may be down with gout, 



ADDRESS TO R. W. ELLISTON, ESQ. 457 

Or want — or Sir — aw ! — listen ! — may be fated, 

Being in debt, to be incarcerated ! 

You — in the back ! — can scarcely hear a line ! 

Down from those benches — butchers — they are mine /" 

Lastly — and thou wert built for it by nature ! — 
Crowned was thy head in Drury Lane Theatre ! 
Gentle George Robins saw that it was good, 
And Renters clucked around thee in a brood. 
King thou wert made of Drury and of Kean I 
Of many a lady and of many a Quean ! 
With Poole and Larpent was thy reign begun — 
But now thou turnest from the Dead and Dun, 
Hook 's in thine eye, to write thy plays, no doubt, 
And Colman lives to cut the damnlets out ! 



Oh, worthy of the house ! the King's commission ! 
Isn't thy condition " a most blessed condition ?" 
Thou reignest over Winston, Kean, and all. 
The very lofty and the very small — 
Showest the plumbless Bunn the way to kick — 
Keepest a Williams for thy veriest stick — 
Seest a Vestris in her sweetest moments. 
Without the danger of newspaper comments — 
Tellest iMacready, as none dared before. 
Thine open mind from the half-open door ! — 
(Alas ! I fear he has left Melpomene's crown, 
To be a Boniface in Buxton town !) — 
Thou holdst the watch, as half-price people know, 
And call est to them, to a moment — " Go !" 
Teachest the sapient Sapio how to sing — 
Hangest a cat most oddly by the wing — 



458 ADDRESS TO R. W. ELLISTON, ESQ. 

(To prove, no doubt, the endless free list ended, 
And all, except the public press, suspended) 
Hast known the length of a Cubitt-foot — and kissed 
The pearly whiteness of a Stephens' wrist — 
Kissing and pitying — tender and humane ! 
*' By Heaven she loves me ! Oh, it is too plain I" 
A sigh like this thy trembling passion slips, 
Dimpling the warm Madeira at thy lips ! 

Go on. Lessee ! Go on, and prosper well ! 
Fear not, though forty Glass-blowers should rebel — - 
Show them how thou hast long befriended them, 
And teach Dubois their treason to condemn ! 
Go on ! addressing pits in prose and worse ! 
Be long, be slow, be any thing but terse — 
Kiss to the gallery the hand that 's gloved — 
Make Bunn the Great, and Winston the Beloved, 
Ask the two shilling Gods for leave to dun 
With words the cheaper Deities in the One ! 
Kick Mr. Poole unseen from scene to scene, 
Cane Williams still, and stick to Mr. Kean, 
Warn from the benches all the rabble rout ; 
Say, those are onine — " In parliament, or out !" 
Swing cats — for in thy house there 's surely space — 
Oh Beasley, for such pastime, planned the place I 
Do any thing ! — Thy fame, thy fortune, nourish ! 
Laugh and grow fat ! be eloquent, and flourish ! 
Go on — and but in this reverse the thing, 
Walk backioard with wax lights before the King-^ 
Go on ! Spring ever in thine eye ! Go on ! 
Hope's favorite child ! ethereal Elliston ! 



ADDRESS 
TO MARIA DARLINGTON,^^ 

ON HER RETURN TO THE STAGE. 

" It was Maria I — 

And better fate (lid Maria deserve than to liave her bsiins forbid 

She had, since that, she told me, strayed as far as Rome, and walked round St. Pe- 
ter's once — and returned back " 

See the whole Story, in Sterne and the N&uospa/per%. 

Thou art come back again to the stage, 

Quite as blooming as when thou didst leave it ; 
And 'tis well for this fortunate age 

That thou didst not, bj going off, grieve it ! 
It is pleasant to see thee again — 

Right pleasant to see thee, by Hercle, 
Unmolested by pea-colored Hayne ! 

And free from that thou-and-thee Berkeley I 

Thy sweet foot, my Foote, is as light 

(Not 7ny Foote— I speak by correction) 
As the snow on some mountain at night, 

Or the snow that has long on thy neck shone. 
The pit is in raptures to free thee. 

The Boxes impatient to greet thee. 
The Galleries quite clam' reus to see thee, 

And thy scenic relations to meet thee ! 



460 ADDRESS TO MARIA DARLINGTON, 

Ah, where was thy sacred retreat ? 

Maria ! ah, where hast thou been, 
With thy two little wandering Feet, 

Far away from all peace and pea-green I 
Far away from Fitzhardinge the bold. 

Far away from himself and his lot ! 
I envy the place thou hast strolled, 

If a stroller thou art — which thou 'rt not I 

Sterne met thee, poor wandering thing, 

Methinks, at the close of the day — 
"When thy Billy had just slipped his string, 

And thy little dog quite gone astray — 
He bade thee to sorrow no more — 

He wished thee to lull thy distress 
In his bosom — he could n't do more. 

And a Christian could hardly do less ! 

Ah, me ! for thy small plaintive pipe, 

I fear we must look at thine eye — 
I would it were my task to wipe 

That hazel orb thoroughly dry I 
Oh sure 'tis a barbarous deed 

To give pain to the feminine mind — 
But the wooer that left thee to bleed 

Was a creature more killing than kind ! 

The man that could tread on a worm 

Were a brute — and inhuman to boot ; 
But he merits a much harsher term 

That can wantonly tread on a Foote ! 
Soft mercy and gentleness blend 

To make up a Quaker — ^but he 
That spurned thee could scarce be a Friend, 

Tho' he dealt in that Thou-ins; of thee ! 



ADDRESS TO MAEIA DARLINGTON. 461 

They that loved thee, Maria, have flown ! 

The friends of the midsummer hour ! 
But those friends now in anguish atone, 

And mourn o'er thy desolate bower. 
Friend Hayne, the Green Man, is quite out, 

Yea, utterly out of his bias ; 
And the faithful Fitzhardinge, no doubt, 

Is counting his Ave Marias ! 

Ah, where w^ert thou driven away, 

To feast on thy desolate woe ? 
We have witnessed thy weeping in play, 

But none saw the earnest tears flow — 
Perchance thou wert truly forlorn — 

Tho' none but the fairies could mark 
Where they hung upon some Berkeley thorn, 

Or the thistles in Burderop Park ! 

.Ah, perhaps, when old age's white snow 

Has silvered the crown of Hayne' s nob — ► 
For even the greenest will grow 

As hoary as " Whiteheaded Bob" — 
He '11 wish, in the days of his prime, 

He had been rather kinder to one 
He hath left to the malice of Time— 

A woman — so weak and undone ! 



ODE 

TO W. KITCHENER, M.D." 

AUTHOR OP THE COOK'S ORACLE— OBSERVATIONS ON VOCAL MUSIC — THE 
ART OP INVIGORATING AND PROLONGING LIFE — PRACTICAL OBSERVA- 
TIONS ON TELESCOPES, OPERA GLASSES, AND SPECTACLES THE HOUSE- 
KEEPER'S LEDGER — AND THE PLEASURE OF MAKING A WILL. 

" I rule the roast, as Milton says 1" — Caleb Quotem. 

Oh ! multifarious man ! 
Thou Wondrous, Admirable Kitchen Crichton I 

Born to enlio;hten 
The laws of Optics, Peptics, Music, Cooking — 
Master of the Piano — and the Pan — 
As busj with the kitchen as the skies ! 

Now looking 
At some rich stew thro' Galileo's eyes — 
Or boiling eggs — timed to a metronome — 

As much at home 
In spectacles as in mere isinglass — 
In the art of frying brown -as a digression 
On music and poetical expression — 
Whereas, how few of all our cooks, alas ! 
Could tell Calliope from '' Calliopec !" 

How few there be 
Could leave the lowest for the highest stories, 

(Observatories,) 
And turn, like thee, Diana's calculator, 
However cook's synonymous with Kater I* 

*'" Captain Kater, the Moon's Surveyor. 



ODE TO W. KITCHENER, M.D. 463 

Alas ! still let me saj, 
How few could lay 
The carving knife beside the tuning-fork, 
Like the proverbial Jack ready for any work ! 

Oh, to behold thy features in thy book ! 
Thy proper head and shoulders in a plate, 

How it would look ! 
With one raised eye watching the dial's date, 
And one upon the roast, gently cast down — 

Thy chops — done nicely brown — 
The garnished brow — with "a few leaves of bay" — 

The hair — " done Wiggy's way !" 
And still one studious finger near thy brains. 

As if thou wert just come 

From editino; some 
New soup — or hashing Dibdin's cold remains ! 
Or, Orpheus-like — fresh from thy dying strains 
Of music — Epping luxuries of sound, 

As Milton says, '' in many a bout 

Of linked sweetness long drawn out," 
Whilst all thy tame stuifed leopards listened round ! 

Oh, rather thy whole proper length reveal, 
Standing like Fortune — on the jack — thy wheel. 
(Thou art, like Fortune, full of cliops and changes, 
Thou hast a fillet too before thine eye !) 
Scanning our kitchen and our vocal ranges, 
As tlio' it were the same to sing or fry — 
Nay J so it is — hear how Miss Paton"s throat 

Makes '-fritters"' of a note ! 
And how Tom Cook (Fryer and Singer born 
By name and nature) oh ! how night and morn 



464 ODE TO W. KITCHENER, M.D. 

He for the nicest public taste doth dish up 
The good things from that Pan of music, Bishop ! 
And is not reading near akin to feeding, 
Or why should Oxfoi^d Smisages be fit 

Receptacles for wit? 
Or why should Cambridge put its little, smart, 
Minced brains into a Tart? 
Nay, then, thou wert but wise to frame receipts, 

Book-treats, 
Equally to instruct the Cook and cram her — 
Receipts to be devoured, as well as read, 
The Culinary Art in gingerbread — 
The Kitchen's Eaten Grammar ! 

Oh, very pleasant is thy motley page — 
Ay, very pleasant in its chatty vein — 
So — in a kitchen — would have talked Montaigna 
That merry Gascon — humorist, and sage ! 
Let slender minds with single themes engage. 

Like Mr. Bowles with his eternal Pope — 
Or Haydon on perpetual Haydon— or 

Hume on " Twice three make four," 
Or Lovelass upon Wills — Thou goest on 
Plaiting ten topics, like Tate Wilkinson ! 

Thy brain is like a rich Kaleidoscope, 
Stuffed with a brilliant medley of odd bits, 

And ever shifting on from change to change. 
Saucepans — old Songs — Pills — Spectacles — and Spi^ 

Thy range is Avider than a Rumford Range ! 
Thy grasp a miracle ! — till I recall 
Th' indubitable cause of thy variety — 
Thou art, of course, th' Epitome of all 
That spying — frying — singing — mixed Society 



ODE TO AV. KITCHENER, M.D. 465 

Of Scientific Friends, who used to meet 

Welch Rabbits — and thyself — in Warren Street; 

Oh, hast thou still those Conversazioni, 
Where learned visitors discoursed — and fed ? 

There came Belzoni, 
Fresh from the ashes of Egyptian dead — 

And gentle Poki — and that Royal Pair, 
Of whom thou didst declare — 
" Thanks to the greatest Cooke we ever read — 
They were— what Sandwiches should be — half 6rec?/" 
There famed M'Adam from his manual toil 
Relaxed — and freely owned he took thy hints 

On "making Broth with Flints'' — 
There Parry came, and showed thee polar oil 
For melted butter— Combe with his medullary 

Notions about the Skn/lery, 
And Mr. Poole, too partial to a broil — 
There witty Rogers came, that punning elf! 
Who used to swear thy book 
Would really look 
A Delphic " Oracle," if laid on Del/— 
There, once a month, came Campbell and discussed 
His own— and thy own—" Magazine of Taste''— 

There Wilberforce the Just 
Came, in his old black suit, till once he traced 
Thy sly advice to Poachers of Black Folks, 
That " do not break their ijolks^— 
Which huffed him home, in grave disgust and haste! 

There came John Clare, the poet, nor forbore 
Thy Patties— ihou wert hand-and-glove with Moore, 
Who called thee " Kitchen Addison' ' —hr why? 

VOL. 11. 30 



^QQ ODE TO W. KITCHENER, M.Do 

Thou givest rules for Health and Peptic Pills, 
Forms for made dishes, and receipts for Wills, 
'^ Teaching ns how to live and how to die /" 
There came thy Cousin-Cook, good Mrs. Fry — 
There Trench, the Thames Projector, first brought on 

His sine Quay non — 
There Martin would drop in on Monday eves. 
Or Fridays, from the pens, and raise his breath 

'Gainst cattle days and death — 
Answered by Mellish, feeder of fat beeves, 

Who swore that Frenchmen never could be eager 

For fighting on soup meagre — 
" And yet (as thou would' st add), the French have seen 

A Marshal Tureen /" 

Great was thy Evening Cluster ! — often graced 
With Dollond — Burgess — and Sir Humphry Davy! 
'T was there M'Dermot first inclined to Taste — 
There Colburn learned the art of making paste 
For puffs — and Accum analyzed a gravy, 
Colman — the Cutter of Coleman Street, 'tis said 
Came there — and Parkins with his Ex- wise-head, 
(His claim to letters) — Kater, too, the Moon's 
Crony — and Graham, lofty on balloons — 
There Croly stalked with holy humor heated, 
Who wrote a light horse play, which Yates completed — 
And Lady Morgan, that grinding organ, 
■ And Brasbridge telling anecdotes of spoons — 
Madame Valbreque thrice honored thee, and came 
With great Rossini, his own bow and fiddle — 
The Dibdins — Tom, Charles. Frognall — came with tuns 
Of poor old books, old puns 1 
And even Irving spared a night from fame — 

1 



ODE TO W. KITCHENER, M.D. 4G7 

And talked — till thou didst stop him in the middle. 
To serve round Tewali-diddle ! * 

Then all the guests rose up, and sighed good-bye ! 
So let them :— thou thyself art still a Host ! 

Dibdin — Cornaro — Newton— Mrs. Fry ! 

Mrs. Glasse, Mr. Spec !— Lovelass — and ¥/eber, 

Matthews in Quot'em— Moore's fire- worshipping 
Gheber — 
Thrice-worthy Worthy, seem by thee engrossed ! 
Howbeit the Peptic Cook still rules the roast, 
Potent to hush all ventriloquial snarling — 
And ease the bosom pangs of indigestion ! 

Thou art, sans question, 
The Corporation's love — its Doctor DarUng ! 
Look at the Civic Palate — nay, the Bed 

Which set dear Mrs. Opie on supplying 
"Illustrations of Lying !" 
Ninety square feet of down from heel to head 

It measured, and I dread 
Was haunted by that terrible niglit Mare^ 
A monstrous burthen on the corporation ! — 
Look at the Bill of Fare, for one day's share. 
Sea- turtles by the score — Oxen by droves, 
Geese, turkeys, by the flock — fishes and loaves 

Countless, as when the Lilliputian nation 
Was making up the huge man -mountain's ration! 

Oh ! worthy Doctor ! surely thou hast driven 

The squatting Demon from great Garratt's breast — . 

(His honor seemed to rest ! — ) 
And what is thy reward ? — Hath London given 

* The Doctor's composition for a night-cap. 



468 ODE TO W. KITCHENER, M.D. 



Thee public thanks for thy important service? 

Alas ! not even 
The tokens it bestowed on Howe and Jervis ! — 
Yet could I speak as Orators should speak 
Before the worshipful the Common Council, 
(Utter my bold bad grammar and pronounce ill 5^ 
Thou should' st not miss thy Freedom, for a weeJ 
Richly engrossed on vellum : — Reason urges 
That he who rules our cookery- that he 
Who edits soups and gravies, ought to be 
A Citizen^ where sauce can make a Burgess ! 



AN ADDRESS 

TO THE VERY REVEREND JOHN IRELAND, D.D. 



CHAELBS FYNES CLINTON, LL.D. 

THOMAS CAUSTON, D.D. 

HOWEL HOLLAND EDWARDS, M.A. 

JOSEPH ALLEN, M.A. 

LORD HENRY FITZROY, M.A. 

IHE BISHOP OF EXETER. 



WM. H, EDWARD BENTINCK, M.A. 

JAMES WEBBER, B.D. 

WILLIAM SHORT, D.D 

JAMES TOURNAY, D.D. 

ANDREW BELL, D.D. 

GEORGE HOLCOMBB, D.D, 



THE DEAN AND CHAPTER OF WESTMINSTER." 

"Sure the Guardians of the Temple can never think they get enough." 

« Citizen of the "Worlh 

Oh, very reverend Dean and Chapter, 

Exhibitors of giant men, 
Hail to each surplice-backed Adapter 

Of England's dead, in her Stone den ! 
Ye teach us properly to prize 

Two-shilling Grays, and Gays, and Handels, 
And, to throw light upon our eyes, 

Deal in Wax Queens like old wax candles. 

Oh, reverend showmen, rank and file, 

Call in your shillings, two and two j 
March with them up the middle aisle, 

And cloister them from public view. 
Yours surely are the dusty dead. 

Gladly ye look from bust to bust, 
Setting a price on each great head. 

To make it come, down with the dust. 



470 THE DEAN AND CHAPTER 

Oh, as I see you walk along 

In ample sleeves and ample back 
A pursy and Avell-ordered throng, 

Thoroughly fed, thoroughly black ! 
In vain I strive me to be dumb — 

You keep each bard like fatted kid, 
Grind bones for bread like Fee faw fum ! 

And drink from sculls as Byron did ! 

The profita1)le Abbey is 

A sacred 'Change for stony stock, 
Not that a speculation 'tis — 

The profit 's founded on a rock. 
Death, Dean, and Doctors, in each nave 

Bony investments have inurned ! 
And hard 'twould be to fifid a grave 

From which " no money is returned !'* 

Here many a pensive pilgrim, brought 

By reverence for those learned bones, 
Shall often come and walk your short 

Two-shilling=* fare upon the stones. — 
Ye have that talisman of Wealth, 

Which puddling chemists sought of old. 
Till ruined out of hope and health ; — 

The Tomb 's the stone that turns to gold I 

Oh, licensed cannibals, ye eat 

Your dinners from your own dead race, 

Think Gray, preserved, a " funeral meat,'' 
And Dryden. deviled, after grace, 

* Since this poem -was written, Doctor Ireland and those in authority 
under hiui have reduced the fares. It is ^ratifyuia: to the Enghsh People 
to know, that while butchers' meat is rising, tombs are falhng. 



OF WESTMINSTER. 471 

A relish ; — and you take your meal 

From Rare Ben Jonson underdone, 
Or, whet your holy knives on Steele, 

To cut away at Addison 1 

Oh say, of all this famous age, 

Whose learned bones your hopes expect, 
Oh have ye ryimbered Rydal's sage, 

Or Moore among your Ghosts elect ? 
Lord Byron was not doomed to make 

You richer by his final sleep- 
Why don't ye warn the Great to take 

Their ashes to no other heap ? 

Southey's reversion have ye got? 

With Coleridge, for his body, made 
A bargain?— has Sir Walter Scott, 

Like Peter Schlemihl, sold his shade 1 
Has Rogers haggled hard, or sold 

His features for your marble shows, 
Or Campbell bartered, ere he 's cold, 

All interest in his " bone repose?" 

Rare is your show, ye righteous men ! 

Priestly Politos— rare, I ween 
But should ye not outside the Den 

Paint up what in it may be seen? 
A long green Shakspeare, with a deer 

Gra'^sped in the many folds it died in— 
A Butler stuffed from ear to ear, 

Wet White Bears weeping o'er a Dry-den . 

Paint Garrick up like Mr. Paap, 
A Giant of some inches high ; 



472 THE DEAN AND CHAPTER 

Paint Handel up, that organ chap, 
With you, as grinders, in his eye ; 
t Depict some plaintive antique thing. 

And say th' original may be seen; — • 

Blind Milton with a dog and string 
May be the Beggar o' Bethnal Green I 

Put up in Poet's Corner, near - 

The little door, a platform small ; 
Get there a monkey — never fear. 

You '11 catch the gapers one and all ! 
Stand each of ye a Body Guard, 

A Trumpet under either fin. 
And yell away in Palace Yard 

''Alldeadl All dead! Walk in! Walk in 1" 

(But when the people are inside. 

Their money paid — I pray you, bid 
The keepers not to mount and ride 

A race around each coffin lid. — 
Poor Mrs. Bodkin thought last year, 

That it was hard — the woman clacks — 
To have so little in her ear — 

And be so hurried through the Wax ! — ) 

" Walk in ! two shillings only ! come ! 

Be not by country grumblers funked ! — 
Walk in, and see th' illustrious dumb ! 

The Cheapest House for the defunct!" 
Write up, 't will breed some just reflection, 

And every rude surmise 'twill stop — 
Write up, that you have no connexion 

(In large) — with any other shop ! 



I 



OF WESTMINSTER. 4] 

And still, to catch the Clowns the more, 

With samples of jour shows in Wax, 
Set some old Harrj near the door 

To answer queries with his axe. — 
Put up some general begging-trunk — 

Since the last broke bj some mishap, 
You 've all a bit of General Monk, 

From the respect you bore his Cap I 



-r-"> 



I 



ODE 

TO H. BODKIN, ESQ.," 

SECRETARY TO THE SOCIETY FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF MENDICITY. 



"This is your charge — ^you shall comprehend all vagrom men." — 

Much Ado About Nothing. 



Hail, King of Shreds and Patches, hail, 

Disperse!' of the Poor ! 
Thou Dog in office, set to bark 

All beggars from the door ! 

Great overseer of overseers, 

And Dealer in old rags ! 
Thy public duty never fails, 

Thy ardor never flags ! 

Oh, when I take my walks abroad, 

How many Poor I miss ! 
Had Doctor Watts walked now-a-days 

He would have written this ! 

So well thy Vagrant catchers prowl, 

So clear thy caution keeps 
The patn — 0, Bodkin, sure thou hast 

The eye that never sleeps ! 



I 



ODE TO H. BODKIN, ESQ. 475 

No Belisarius pleads for alms, 

No Benbow lacketh legs ; 
The pious man in black is now 

The only man that begs ! 

Street-Handels are disorganized, 

Disbanded every band ! — 
The silent scraper at the door 

Is scarce allowed to stand ! 

The Sweeper brushes with his broom, 

The Carstairs with his chalk 
Retires — the Cripple leaves his stand. 

But cannot sell his walk. 

The old Wall-blind resigns the wall, 

The Camels hide their humps, 
The Witherington without a leg 

Mayn't beg upon his stumps ! 

Poor Jack is gone, that used to doff 

His battered tattered hat. 
And show his dangling sleeve, alaa 1 

There seemed no arm irx that J 

Oh ! it was such a sin to air 

His true blue naval rags, 
Glory's own trophy, like St. Paul, 

Hung round with holy flags ! 

Thou knowest best. I meditate, 

My Bodkin, no offence ! 
Let us, henceforth, but guard our pounds, 

Thou dost protect our pence '- 



4T6 ODE TO H. BODKIN, ESQ. 

"W eil art thou pointed 'gainst the Poor, 
For, when the Beggar Crew 

Bring their petitions, thou art paid, 
Of course, to ''run them through." 

Doubtless thou art what Hamlet meant 
To wretches the last friend : 

What ills can mortals have, they can't 
'' With a bare Bodkin^' end ? 



NOTES. 



NOTES. 



(1.) Odes and Addresses. 

Hood tells us, in his Literary Ueminiscences, that on tln' publication 
of the Odes and Addresses, presentation copies were sent to Mr. Canning 
and Sir Walter Scott. " The minister," he adds, " took no notice of 
the little volume; but the novelist did, in his usual kind manner. An 
eccentric friend, in writing to me, once made a number of colons, semi- 
colons, &c., at the bottom of the paper, adding : 

' And these are my points that I place at the foot 
That you may put stops that I can't stop to put.' 

It will surprise no one to observe that the author of Waverley had as 
little leisure for punctuation." 

" Sir Walter Scott has to make thankful acknowledgments for the 
copy of the Odes to Great People with which he was favored and more 
particularly for the amusement he has received from the perusal. He 
wishes the unknown author good health good fortune and whatever 
other good things can best support and encourage his lively vein of in- 
ofiensive and humorous satire 

^'■Abbotsfoi'd Melrose Ath May'''' 

Coleridge also was favorably impressed with th^^ Odes, and of \m 
second meeting with Hood at Colebrooke, the following anecdote is 
related. The author of Ch-istabel was attended by one of his sons, and 
made some remark which drew from the lad (who had not been intro- 
duced to Hood) the remark—" Ah! that's just like your crying up those 
foolish Odes and Addresses r "Coleridge" (Hdod adds) " v.as highly 
amused with this mal-d-propos, and without explaining, looked slyly 



480 NOTES. 

around st me with the sort of suppressed laugh one may suppose to 
iDelong to the Bey of Tittery. The truth was, he felt naturally partial 
to a book be had attributed in the first instance to the dearest of hi? 
friends, as appears from the following- letter to Lamb."' 

" My dear Charles : — This afternoon, a little, thin, mean-looking 
sort of a foolscap, sub-octavo of poems, printed on very dingy outsides, 
lay on the table, which the cover informed me was circvilating in our 
l)ook-club, so very Grub Streetish in all its appearance, internal as well 
as external, that I cannot explain by what accident of impulse (assuredly 
there was no motive in play) I came to look into it. Least of all, the 
title, Odes and Addresses to Great Men, which connected itself in my 
head with Rejected Addresses, and all the Smith and Theodore Hook 
squad. But, my dear Cliaries, it was certainly written by you, or under 
you, or una cum you. I know none of your frequent visitors capacious 
and assimilative enough of your converse to have reproduced you so 
honestly, supposing you had left yourself in pledge in his lock-up house. 
Gillman, to whom I read the spirited parody on the introduction to 
Peter Bell, the Ode to the Great Unknown, and to Mrs. Fry ; bespeaks 
doubtfully of Reynolds and Hood. But here come Irving and Basil 
Montagu. 

"Thursday mght, 10 o'clock. — Xo ! Charles, it is yon. T have read 
them over again, and I understand why you liave anon'd the book. The 
puns are nine in ten good — many excellent — the Newgatory transcen- 
dent. And tben the exemplum sine exemplo of a volume of personali- 
ties and contemporaneities, without a single line that could inflict the 
infinitesimal of an unpleasance on any man in his senses ; saving and 
except perhaps in the envy-9ddled brain of the despiser of your Lays. 
If not a triumph over him, it is at least an ovation. Then, moreover, 
and besides, to speak with becoming modesty, excepting my own self, 
who is there but you who could write the musical lines and stanzas that 
are intermixed ? 

*' Here Gillman, come up to my garret, and drivc^i l)ack by the guar- 
dian spirits of four huge flower-holders of omnigenous roses and honey- 
Buckles — (Lord have mercy on his hysterical olfactories! Athat will be 
do in Paradise ? I must have a pair or two of nostril-plugr,, or nos&. 
goggles, laid in bis coffin) — stands at the door, reading that to M'Adam, 
and the M-asherwoman's letter, and be admits the ficts. Ttni a;\> found 
in tlid manner, as the lawyers say ! so, Mr. Charles ! hang yourself up» 



NOTES. 481 

and send me a line, by way of token and acknowledgment. My dear 
love to Mary. G-od bless you and your Unshamabramizer, 

S. T. Coleridge." 

It may be mentioned here, that instead of feeling " the infinitesimal 
of an unpleasance" at being Addressed in the Odes the once celebrated 
Mr. Hunt presented to the Authors a bottle of his best " Permanent 
Ink/' and the eccentric Doctor Kitchener sent an invitation to dinner. 

(2.) Ode to Mr. M'Adam. 
Mr. M'Adam was the inventor of a new mode of pavuig streets, 
which caused in its day more newspaper discussion than the Russ pave- 
ment in ours. We copy an amusing paragraph on this subject from 
the John Bull : 

" We perceive a strong disposition in certain quarters to run down 
the system of Macadamization ; and we think when its demerits arc pro ■ 
perly pointed out and enumerated, there will be no opinion but one on 
the matter. In the first place, it appears quite clear that Macadamized 
streets will not keep dry in wet weather ; this is a fact for which we were 
hardly prepared. In the second place, if incessant rain for nearly three 
months pours down in torrents upon the coat before the substratum has 
time to settle, it seems the materials subsequently deposited upon that 
substratum will not bind — but on the contrary, form a disagreeable mud, 
imlike in its color and appearance that beautiful black mud in which 
the paved streets of London are so happily fertile. But in the third 
place, we discover that those streets which ' never dry' will [when tJiey 
do) become so dusty as to powder the heads of lounging dandies, cover 
the furniture of adjacent houses, and not only put out the eyes of the 
passengers, but absolutely ruin Lundy Foot's trade in Irish snufF, by fill- 
ing the noses of the cockneys gratis, with a mixture- strongly resembling 
that popular article in color, flavor, and pungency. 

" With respect to the quietude, some of the wag<s Irrthe city say that 
Mr. M'Adam has falsified his own name in the process of producing it. 
' For how,' says Mr. Alderman Thorpe, ' can this man call himself 
Louden Macadam, when his object avowedly is to do away a noise ?' " 

For these reasons and others equally cogent, the John Bull declares 
that it had quitted the Macadamites and joined the Pbeadamites, 
" who richly deserve the name, for their rigid adherence to primeval 
notions and obsolete doctrines upon this particular subject." 

This mode of constructing roads has not been adopted to much extent 

VOL. II. 31 



482 NOTES. 

in the United States, but still prevails in England. A recent traveller 
says that Lord Street and some of the finest thoroughfares of Liverpool, 
are splendid specimens of Macadamization, and that during a fortnight's 
time he had not seen dust or mud on any of them. 

(3.) Ode to Mrs. Fry. 

The address to Mrs. Fry is happily conceived, and justly exposes the 
folly of compelling persons to quahfij themselves for the Refuge for the 
Destitute, and similar charities, by being committed to prison for crime. 
The ode advocates prevention as superior to cure in its advantages. — 
Jokn Bull. 

(4.) Ode to Richard Martin, Esquire. 

Mr. Martin distinguished himself by his exertions in Parliament for 
the passage of a bill to prevent cruelty to animals. Hook said that the 
only persons dissenting from the general approbation he met with were 
bullock-drivers, hackney coachmen, bull-baiters, dog-fighters, and Gentle- 
men of the Opposition. Lord Erskine was the originator of the measure, 
which was merely revived by the kind-hearted member for Galway. 

(5.) Address to Mr. Dymoke, the Champimi of England. 

The following extract from a description of the Coronation of George 
lY., from the London Magazine for August, 1821, will serve as an ex- 
planation of this Address: 

" At the end of this course the gates of the Hall were again thrown 
open, and a noble flourish of trumpets announced to all eager hearts 
that the Champion was about to enter. He advanced under the gate- 
way, on a fine piebald charger (an ill color), and clad in complete steel. 
The plumes on his head were tri-colored, and extremely magnificent ; 
and he bore in his hand the loose steel gauntlet, ready for the challenge. 
The Duke of Wellington was on his right hand, the Marquis of 
Anglesea on his left. Wlien he had come within the limits of the Hall, 
he was about to throw down his glove at once, so eager was he for the 
fray, but the Herald distinctly said, ' Wait till I have read the chal- 
lenge,' and read it accordingly, the Champion husbanding his valor for 
a few minutes : 

" ' If any person, of what degree soever, high or low, shall deny or 
gainsay our Sovereign Lord King George the Fourth of the United 



NOTES. 483 

Kingdom of Ureat Britain and Ireland. Dcfondor of the Faith, son and 
next heir to our Sovereign Lord King George the Third, the last King 
deceased, to be right heir to the Imperial crown of the United King- 
dom, or that he ought not to enjoy the same, here is his Champion who 
saith that he lieth, and is a false traitor ; being ready in person to com- 
bat with him, and in this quarrel will adventure liis life against him on 
wliat day soever he shall be appointed.' 

" At the conclusion of this awful challenge, the Champion hurled down 
his gauntlet, which fell with a solemn clash upon the floor. It rang in 
most hearts ! He then stuck his wrist against his steeled side, as though 
to show how indifferent he was to the consequence of his challenge. 
This certainly had a very pleasing and gallant effect. The Herald, in a 
few seconds, took up the glove, delivered it to the squire, who kissed it 
and handed it to the Champion. In the middle of the Hall the same 
ceremony was performed ; and at the foot of the royal platform, it was 
a third time gone through. The King then drank his health, and me- 
thinks with real pleasure, for the Champion had right gallantly con- 
ducted himself His Majesty then sent the cup to him ; and he, taking 
it, drank to the King, but in so low a tone that I could only catch the 
meaning by the tumultuous shouts of the people. The noise seemed to 
awaken the courage of his horse, but he mastered his steed admirably. 
The ceremony of backing out of the Hall was then again performed, 
and successfully, with the exception of the Marquis of Anglesea's 
Arabian, whose doubts were not yet satisfied, and he was literally shown 
out by the pages." 

In Hall's Account of the Coronation of Henry VIII. and Katherine 
of Arragon, it is mentioned that Sir Henry Dimmoke appeared as 
" Champion of the King by tenour of his inheritance." The office 
seems to have remained in the Dimmoke family till the time of our 
author. 

The germ of this address is in an ode which we find in the London 
Magazine of September, 1821, and which is worth preserving. 

THE champion's FAREWELL. 

Otium cum Dignitatc. 

Here ! bring me my breeches, my armor is over ; 

Farewell for some time to my tin pantaloons ; 
Double-milled kerseymere is a kind of leg clover, 

Good luck to broad cloth for a score or two moons \ 



4:84: NOTES. 

Here ! hang up my helmet, and reach me my beaver, 

This avoirdupois weight of glory must fall ; 
I think on my life that again I shall never 

Take my head in a sauce-pan to Westminster Hall. 

Oh, why was my family born to be martial ? 

'Tis a mercy this grand show-off-fight-day is up ! 
I do not think Cato was much over-partial 

To back through the dishes, with me and my cup. 

By the blood of the Dymokes, I'll sit in my lodgings, 
And the gauntlet resign for " neat gentleman's doe ;" 

If I ride I will ride, and no longer be dodging 

My horse's own tail 'twixt Duke, Marquis & Co. ^ 

No more at my horsemanship folks shall make merry, 

For I'll ship man and horse, and " show off" not on shore ; 

No funnies for me ! I will ride in a wherry ; 

They feathered my skull, but I'll feather my oar. 

So, Thomas, take Cato and put on his halter, 

And give him some beans, since I now am at peace ; 

If a Champion is wanted, pray go to Sir Walter, 
And he'll let you out Marniious at sovereigns apiece. 

The ladies admired the piebald nag vastly, 

And clapped his old sober-sides into the street ; 

Here's a cheque upon Child, so, my man, go to Astley, 
Pay the charge of a charger, and take a receipt. 

(6.) Ode to Joseph Grimaldi, Senior. 

Grimaldi, the King of Clowns, resigned the sovereignty of panto- 
mime in July, 1828, and took leave of the public at Drury Lane. 
Illness, induced by over-exertion in his fun, was the cause of his 
retreat. He was only in his 48th year. The house was crowded to 
the roof A gentleman who was present on the occasion informs us 
that after having g^one through some of the most surprising feats of 
agility ever witnessed, when Grimaldi appeared in citizen's dress before 
the curtain, to make his acknowledgments, he was so exhausted and 
enfeebled as to be hardly able to stand. In a prose sketch, Hood has 
given an account of his last interview with Grimaldi. 



NOTES. 48(> 

Quick, " one of the old actors," says a foot-note to the author's 
edition, " is still a performer (but in private) of Old Rapid," (182G.) 
As Macklin, when he was eighty years of age, played lago, it may well 
be that this performer in private of Old Rapid, in 1826, was the same 
Quick who more than half a century before played the Post Boy in 
Goldsmith's comedy of the Good-Natured Man, and Tony Lumpkin in 
She Stoops to Conquer, on its first night. Goldsmith was so much 
pleased with his success in the latter character, that he adapted a 
farce from the French, and permitted it to be played with his name for 
Quick's benefit before the season closed. 

(7.) Ode to Sylvanus Urban. 
The Ode to Sylvanus Urban contains more humor and less quibbling 
than any other portion of the book, and surprises us that a man able to 
write as the following quaint verses are written, should let his fancy 
run riot, and have recourse to the worst of all apologies for wit — pun- 
ning. Even in this, the fatal propensity here and there appears, but 
much subdued ; we presume by the seriousness of the subject. — John 
Ball. 

(8.) Address to the Steam Washing Company. 

The Patent Steam Washing Company, established at Phipps' Bridge, 
'Merton, Surrey, proved, by '* actual experiment," at the Company's 
works, that " nothing less powerful than action by steam will extract 
from linen all its impurities." Further experiment, we believe, has 
demonstrated that " washing by hand" will answer all practical pur- 
poses, or washerwomen would long since have been abolished. 

(9.) Ode to Captain Parry. 
Captain W. E. Parry sailed from London in the Hecla, accompanied 
by the Fary, on his third voyage of discovery to the North Pole, on 
the 9th of May, 1824. It was the least successful of his strenuous and 
meritorious efforts to effect a northwest passage from the Atlantic to 
the Pacific, and left it precisely where it was at the conclusion of his 
first voyage. The British Government had offered a reward of five 
thousand pounds sterling to the first vessel that should approach within 
one degree of the North Pole ; but no one yet has '" stof)d on the pivot 
on which this globe of ours turns, and hoisted the British flag on the 
most remarkable point on the earth's surface." 'J'his has been a favor- 
ite enterprise of bold navigators from the time of Sir Martin Frobisher, 
who replied to his friend, when seeking to dissuade him from the at- 



486 NOTES. 

tempt — " It is the only thing in the world that is left yet undone, 
whereby a notable mind might be made famous and fortunate." 

(10.) Address to Maria Darlington. 
The allusions in this Address may be explained, by stating that in 
December, 1824, an action was brought by Miss Foote, the celebrated 
actress, against Mr. Hayne, a gentleman of fortune, for a breach of pro- 
mise of marriage. Distinguished counsel were employed on both sides ; 
among others, the Attorney-General for the plaintiflp, and Brougham 
and Scarlett for the defendant. It was proved on the trial that she had 
lived for five years under the protection of Colonel Berkeley, who had 
seduced her under a promise of marriage, and by whom she had two 
children. It was also proved that the Colonel communicated these 
facts to Mr. Hayne, and that the proposed marriage was broken off in 
consequence. Subsequently, however, Mr. Hayne renewed his atten- 
tions and his promise of marriage, which he refused to fulfil. A ver- 
dict was found for the plaintiff. Damages, £3,000. Miss Foote in 
April, 1831, became the Countess of Harrington, 

(11.) Ode to W. Kitchener, M.D, 
In the London Magazine for October, 1821, is a review of the 
Cook's Oracle, which was doubtless from Hood's pen. In the Novem- 
ber number of the same work is the first conception of the Ode in the- 
text. 

ODE TO DR. KITCHENER. 

Ye Muses nine inspire. 

And stir up my poetic .fire : 

Teach my burning soul to speak 

With a bubble and a squeak ! 
Of Dr. Kitchener I fain would sing, 
Till pots, and pans, and , mighty kettles ring. 

culinary Sage ! 
(I do not mean the herb in use, 
That always goes along with goose,) 

How have I feasted on thy page ! 
** When like a lobster boiled the morn 

From black to red began to turn," 
Till midnight, when I went to bed, 
And clapped my tewah-diddle* on my head. 

* The Doctor's composition for a night-cap» 



NOTES. 487 

Wlio is there caunot tell 

Thou lead'st a life of living well ? 
•' What barou, or squire, or knight of the shire, 
Lives half so well as a holy Fry-er ?" 

In doing well thou must be reckoned 

The first, and Mrs. Fry the second ; 
And twice a Job — for in thy feverish toils, 
Thou wast all over roasts, as well as boils. 

Thou wast indeed no dunce. 

To treat thy subjects and thyself at once. 

Many a hungry poet eats 
His brains like thee, 
But few there be 

Could live so long on their receipts. 

What living soul or sinner 

Would slight thy invitation to a dinner, 
Ought with the Dana'ides to dwell. 

Draw gravy in a cullender, and hear 

For ever in his ear 
The pleasant tinkling of thy dinner bell. 

Immortal Kitchener ! thy fame 

Shall keep itself when Time makes game 
Of other men's. Yea, it shall keep all weathers, 
And thou shalt be upheld by thy pen-feathers. 
Yea, by the sauce of Michael Kelly, 

Thy name shall perish never. 

But be magnified for ever. 
By all whose eyes are bigger than their belly J 

Yea, till the world is done 

To a turn, and Time puts out the Sun, 
Shall live the endless echo of thy name. 
But as for thy more fleshy frame. 
Oh, Death's carnivorous teeth will tittle 
Thee out of breath, and eat it for cold victuaL 
But still thy fame shall be among the nations 
Preserved to the last course of generations. 



488 NOTES. 

Ah, me ! my soul is touched with sorrow -^ 

To think how flesh must pass away ; "^ 

So mutton that is warm to-day 
Is cold and turned to hashes on the morrow ! 

Farewell ! I would say more, but I 

Have other fish to fry. 

(12.) Address to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster. 

The " very reverend " managers of Westminster Abbey have grown 
but little more liberal in their notions since this address was written, 
though they have " reduced the fares." The ashes of Campbell were 
deposited in the centre of the Poet's Corner in 1844, but many years 
elapsed before his friends were able to meet the demands of the Dean 
and Chapter for the admission of his statue. On May-day evening, in 
1855, it was erected in the presence of William C. Marshall, the sculp- 
tor, and Dr. Beattie, Campbell's biographer and friend. In mentioning 
this fact, on the authority of a letter of Dr. Beattie, Mr. Willis adds, 
in a paragraph in the Home Journal : " It will be recollected that not 
lon^ since we mentioned the delay and difficulty of procuring the admis- 
sion of this statue to the ' Poet's Corner,' the Dean of Westminster 
refusing the formal authorization till his sacerdotal fee (of two hundred 
pounds) was first paid. Dr. Beattie finally saw this fat churchman 
satisfied, and the statue (the subscriptions for the carving and placing 
of which Dr. B. had also procured) was then admitted to this sanctuary 
of England's immortals." 

(13.) Ode to H. Bodkin, Esq. 
Mr. Bodkin became notorious by an action against the Times news- 
paper, for a libel touching his relations to the Mendicity Society. 
Scarlett, for the defence, contended that the Society was mainly pro- 
moted by the interference and assiduity of Mr. B., and was kept before 
the public eye by means of pamphlets, puffs, and anniversary dinners. 
He compared him to the servant of Don Manuel Dordona, immortalized 
by Gil Bias, who throve on his master's reputation for charity, by col- 
lecting money to be distributed by him among the poor, and putting it 
in his own, pocket. Bodkin collected money from all quarters for the 
support of the Society, and received £500 a year for his own services. 
The jury found a verdict for the plaintiff — 30s. damages, and 40s. costs. 



THE end. 






I 



I 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: April 2009 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




